Set Theory (Limbus Company/Highschool DxD)

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

Obscurum​

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The world was a dark and quiet place.

Time did not pass here, in this space where infinitesimal moments stretched on into eternity. Seconds were not counted. Hours crawled without sound. Weeks or months could have passed without notice, for nothing in this world could indicate their course. The only thing that stood in this room was the long deadlock of silence, standing sentinel in the darkness; the beloved companion of those who were not witnessed, and therefore have not existed anywhere at all.

Yes, this world was a dark and quiet place.

But on rare occasions, this small world would welcome the shutter of a door, the promise of change, followed by the blinding agony of light.

"It'll be over soon."

Words that meant nothing filled the space during those moments, chasing the pain they wrought with their hands as though it could soothe the memories that would stay after. It never did, but the words repeated, spinning like a record through countless repetitions that made everything feel the same yet unreal.

Then the door would close. The lights would go out. And the familiar solitude would nurse the sun-scars better than any cure.

That was existence, staring back from the confines of a mirror, faithfully seated in the corner farthest from the blue. Asleep as it was on most occasions, it would sometimes rise and embrace life as a whole, bringing with it illusions of warmth and rhythms of time.

The world was a dark and quiet place.

But it was enough.

So said the tree that fell in the forest with no one to hear its sound.

---

"So you've chosen to walk down this path after all."

A man with long silver hair and heterochromatic eyes called out to the person seated at the desk, who did not turn to face him even after his intrusion. The sound of tapping filled the air, suffocating the otherwise plain office room in the monotone choir of corporate labor.

When they first started to furnish this office, the man questioned the owner's decorative sense, because no sane executive would face their desk to the wall instead of the door. Now he knew the reason, but he still maintained that 'not wanting to remember every single person who enters this room' was an unequivocally silly reason.

"Not going to preface that with a hello, Enoch?"

Enoch huffed as he approached the desk, his steps thundering with ill-controlled anger. "No, because basic civility is lost on you." He grabbed the back of the chair, spinning it around to face him. "You're making a mistake ████."

A beautiful woman with periwinkle hair and pink eyes met his claim stoically, refusing to bend to even a fraction of his rage. The light of the screens cast her in a cold, artificial halo, shadowing her features just as they shone a spotlight on Enoch's.

"You're using the wrong name again," she tutted mellifluously, "Call me Irene."

"Is 'Irene' going to listen to me?" Enoch challenged.

She placed a dainty hand on her cheek. "Not really, no."

Enoch snarled, baring his fangs in frustration. "Back out of this, Irene. Once you start down this road, there's no going back! We now have a whole host of options and resources at our disposal. We're not the people we were back then, miserable bastards clinging onto a star we never noticed was light-years away!"

He loomed over her, breathing heavily as his octave rose. Aggravation, desperation, and the smallest tinge of hope laced his words, granting them an almost palpable weight. His hands trembled with the urge to shake Irene free of her stubbornness, to pry her from the yoke she wore to steer their endless march forward.

"But this is what we've been striving for all this time," Irene said, leaning forward in her seat without breaking eye contact. "The sleepless nights, the constant doubts, the metamorphosis of me, and the hatching of you. We struggled on blindly, propped up by nothing, yet we selfishly reached out to that star for hope when we could barely see one step ahead. Chasing this dream… was what carried us away from our wretched beginnings. Do we not have an obligation to our past selves to fulfill the goal that kept us from festering into empty, blackened husks?"

"That's exactly the point, Irene!" Enoch could barely keep himself from yelling, his heart thumping rapidly in his chest. He gulped for air, trying to steady his breathing before Irene's indifference could set in, else he fully lost his cool. "Our past… our past is history."

He got to his knees, cradling her hands in his like a worshipper pleading with his deity.

"The world may not have changed, but you and I have," he said, "Our world is no longer a place of unhappiness. Can't that be enough?"

Her face was unreadable, but Enoch had been with her long enough to know that she was processing his request with the respect she felt it deserved. As uncompromising as Irene was, a part of her heart still yielded to the promise they made in their early days, when she was a butterfly dead in her cocoon, and he was a mockingbird clipping his wings.

"...It is enough," she whispered gently, filling the space between them with confessions meant for him and him alone.

Despite that, Enoch's stomach sank.

"But Enoch." Her smooth hands grasped tightly onto his. "I want to die with no regrets."

Irene leaned forward, touching her forehead to his as Enoch squeezed his eyes shut, damming up the tears threatening to slide down his cheeks. He wanted to fight, to scream, to commit an act so violent that it would break down the gates of Heaven, dragging Irene down to the cold earth where his prayers could be heard once more. He could not see her pursuit of their dream as anything other than madness, a path of self-centered intentions headed straight for Hell.

Yet he couldn't deny… that he wanted to see how she'd bring it into fruition.

"I just wish I could do it for you," he muttered, disentangling one of his hands to cup her face. Her skin was cold, but the slight lean of her head into his palm gave him the will to choke down his sorrow.

"I know," Irene said, lips lifting into a small, sincere smile. "Thank you for thinking of me."

Enoch collapsed forward, his roiling agitation snuffed out like a flame. Burying his face into her lap, he hugged her waist, nails tearing lines into her open back in his fervor to embrace her. It must have stung terribly, but Irene simply combed her fingers through his hair, accepting the act of harm for what it was: an expression of love.

"Everything is already in place," she told him, soothing his soul until the frenzied voices crying out to him slowly ebbed away. "But I'd still like to tip the scales a bit more in our favor. Focus our resources on Singularity replication, and start separating the company into Asiyah, Briah, and Atziluth Layers. Maintain our covertness until the last possible second. Use memory-wipe procedures or information erasure protocols if you have to. Attention from that side is only acceptable after we've made it past the halfway point."

Enoch turned his head sideways so he could speak. "Is there anything you want expedited?"

"Fairies, since that Singularity has already reached the working prototype stage. Restorative Bullets and Ampules are also necessary for the journey ahead." Irene tapped her chin, pondering over her priorities. "Oh, and please ask the magician teams to collaborate with the Talisman workshop full-time. We need to produce as many Grimoires as possible, starting with teleportation magic."

"I'll draw some researchers out of the Moonlight Stone and Nuovo Fabric workshops to help accelerate the Singularities' development. Their technology has already reached commercial standards, so we can merge what's left of their workshops and set them on augmented clothing design."

"The Extraction Department will be happy to hear that," Irene mused.

"I can imagine. Managing the Metamorphosed is no joke." Enoch conjured a dark brown feather between his fingers, sweeping its vanes over Irene's wound to heal it in a silent apology. "I suppose that's another reason you're moving forward with this plan."

Irene nodded. "Despite our knowledge of the Metamorphosed and how to contain them, the situation is hardly ideal. We have to take action before we completely lose our advantage."

Enoch rose to his feet, succumbing to the urge to pace around the room. "I'll have to go over the Investigation Department's sighting reports one more time. Do you have an estimation on how the plan might affect the Distortion Phenomenon?"

"I predict a gradual 47% uptick in cases around the world across a six-month period once the first milestone is reached. Less than half that time within an eight-mile radius of every hotspot."

"Shit," he cursed plainly.

The numbers weren't good. Awful even. Just the thought of that many Distortion cases happening one after another made Enoch tug at his ponytail, tying the length into knots so he wouldn't start yelling about how horrible this plan was.

"And who's going to deal with those cases?" he asked, sounding more strained than he intended.

"The new department, of course."

Enoch paused mid-step.

"We have a new department?"

When was that approved?!

Sensing his distress, Irene spun her chair around, inviting him closer to the desk with a flick of her wrist. He approached and leaned over her shoulder, watching her minimize several windows before arriving at a PDF. Schematics, timetables, resource allocation forms, and other detailed documents unfolded on screen, prompting Enoch to take Irene's mouse and start scrolling through the pages one by one.

"This is the centerpiece of our plan," Irene said, eyes glimmering with a hint of excitement. "The Mirror technology, the Enkephalin extractions, and the Singularity replications… Everything we've worked for all these years has culminated in this department. They will travel across the world, solving Distortion cases and plucking the branches from their beds, so that we may finally transplant a 'tree'."

"You'll be watching over them?"

"Every step of the way. Though it will be a different version of myself."

Enoch sighed into his hand before smoothing back his bangs. "I suppose that leaves me to run the company then."

"You're my treasured Vice-President for a reason." Irene patted his cheek.

He tried not to look too fond of the woman sitting below him, but that was a futile effort in and of itself. Though he had come in here to chew her out, Irene's earnest wish unraveled him as easily as a fraying sweater. Her words had hit him where it hurt, cleaving through his defenses because whatever she dreamt, he dreamt, and anything she yearned for, he sought after as well. They were two sides of the same coin, and acknowledging that meant accepting this course of action, along with all the shame, anguish, and anticipation it carried.

She knew that, and he knew that too. For their hands had never come loose from each other since the day their paths intersected, when they disregarded the crossroad before them to chase after the same star.

Enoch hadn't stopped dreaming. But somewhere along their journey, her hand had become his entire world, anchoring him to the ground when he once flew on wax-feather wings. Now his great thought in living was to become one with that world, to love and cherish this girl for however long his body could handle, until he was pulverized to dust.

But similar to how the gravity of the Earth kept birds from flying into the sun, so too did Irene carry an irresistible pull. Wherever she went, he was bound to follow.

Which was why…

"If you ever lose your way, can I beat you back to your senses?"

Irene snorted, taken aback by the blatant petition. It was no joking matter, as Enoch fully intended to give any attempt his all, but the abruptness of his question wrenched a laugh out of the CEO, something he proudly took as a win.

"Do you think I'll lose my way?" she asked coyly, dropping her stoic act for a moment.

"You're an all-or-nothing girl at heart."

"That makes me sound like a gambler."

"Aren't you?" He gestured at the page he was reading, a team roster listing positions without a single name to fill them. "You're cutting it close on recruitment, considering the department's intended schedule."

Irene just smiled mysteriously, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. She was planning something outrageous again, he knew it.

"Everything will fall into place, Enoch." She took his hand, whirling out of her chair before dragging him out the office door. "Come on, let's go grab some lunch. We can discuss the rest of the plan at the conference."

The man stumbled a little as he flew after her, warm exasperation dyeing his cheeks a cherry pink. "The Department Heads are going to flip."

"They will," Irene confirmed, "But this is what they signed up for. We'll have to emphasize our need for their support—"

The metallic door slid shut behind them, cutting them off from the plain and windowless office. Remnants of their presence lingered in the now silent room, from a scuff left by Enoch's pacing to the well-worn depression in Irene's seat.

The most eye-catching of these remnants was the monitor they left on, its CPU whirring softly as the computer's tabs processed in the background. On that glowing screen, a modest roster listed twelve vacant positions, formatted below the bolded Georgia header that marked every page of the document.

Tikkun Company Sefirot Department
​

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A/N: Many hellos from Spacebattles~ I'm Acht of Seven Tactics, and this is my first time posting a thread on QQ. Hope you're ready for a ball, because writing this has been great.

 

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

Altare​

---

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

— Vincent Van Gogh, to his brother, Theo

The sanctum was bathed in iridescent light, shining through the tall prismatic windows from a source that didn't exist beyond the blue, pink, and white. The room was built as a gigantic oval, encircling eleven round altars inscribed with ancient texts and mystical symbols, which were connected by paths painted in bright, alternating colors. Atop each of those altars, eleven people slept on in silence, curled up on their platforms like sacrificial offerings to a hungry god.

It was a haunting, yet peaceful scene.

Then suddenly…

SNAP!

A sharp crack echoed through the chamber, lifting the veil of slumber. Near a dozen pairs of eyes flew open, followed by a chorus of groans, and the ensuing wave of chaos and suspicion.

"What the hell?!" cried a boy with dark brown hair and grey eyes, dressed to the nines in a black tailored suit fitted with two long yellow tassels. He rolled off the altar farthest from everyone else's, his body tense and ready for a fight. "What happened? What is this place?"

"You tell me," said an androgynous teen with downy black hair and amethyst eyes. They wore an elegant black and blue twin-tailed coat, complemented by the cerulean feather accessory hanging from the side of their head. Despite the troubling nature of their surroundings, they seemed more indifferent than cautious, though a hint of annoyance tinged the edges of their tone. "We're laid out on altars in the middle of a chamber with no idea where we are or how we got here. Logic dictates that we should have been sacrificed like lambs in our sleep. Seeing as that hasn't happened yet…"

Blood drained from the brown-haired boy's face. "Oh fuck."

The androgynous teen dismissed him with a sigh, completely losing interest in him as he sank into the beginnings of a panic attack. They turned their attention elsewhere, amusedly watching the utter anomaly flitting around the room in a gold-white chiton.

"620, 73, 67, 474, 72, 216, 1081, 148, 15, 80…" A blue-haired girl's eyes sparkled like sapphires as she rattled off a series of nonsensical numbers. "496! A perfect number! Everything in this room has been designed to embody the gematria values of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. How wonderful!"

On the altar at the lower east end of the room, a girl with pink hair and green eyes lay face down and sobbed, either vehemently disagreeing with the other girl's claim or just physically sick of having to listen to math of all things while abducted.

Things at the center of the chamber weren't much better, though it was a lot less loud. The only one causing a ruckus was an albino boy dressed in exorcist clothes. He reached his arm out, calling for the armaments that had accompanied him for the longest time, only to be left disappointed when they refused to heed his summons.

"Gram, Balmung, Nothung… None of them are responding." He gritted his teeth, pacing around his altar as he flexed his back repeatedly. "Twice Critical isn't working either… and my strength is nowhere near the level it should be."

He slammed his fist into his altar, growling when the surface didn't so much as crack. His body tensed with the urge to vent his frustrations, an itch that did not go unnoticed by those around him.

"I understand that you're angry, but please don't lash out so much," a golden-eyed boy quietly pleaded. He was swaddled in monk robes and had a teardrop-shaped tilak painted on his forehead, which was creased with worry and fear. "I'm not sure she can take any more stress."

The 'she' he was referring to was a girl who had yet to rise from her altar, her slitted red eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. Her pale blonde hair spilled messily over the edges, making her look like a zombie frozen in disbelief.

For a moment, it seemed like the white-haired teen was getting ready to argue, but a second glance at the girl's helpless expression pushed his belligerence into a corner. He rubbed at his face, leaving the monk and the girl to their own devices as he started investigating the room, searching for an exit that didn't involve crashing through the nebula-depicting windows.

"Well, this is quite the clusterfuck— I mean, mess," stuttered a brown-haired girl dressed in a traditional kimono. She glanced furtively at the silver-haired child sitting opposite her, quietly hoping he hadn't picked up on the expletive.

The gods bestowed mercy on her by curling the monkey's paw. The child, a boy who barely looked older than ten, was clutching his arm while on the verge of tears. He mumbled under his breath, begging something to show itself, and huddling into a ball when it refused to respond.

Disconcerted at the sight, the girl went to kneel before the youth, trying her best to comfort him with clumsy words. "Hey– Hey! Kid, it's okay. We're gonna–"

"NO!" he screamed, shuffling away from her as she flinched. "They're gone, they're gone, they're gone someone took them away from meeeeeee!!!"

His screams popped the bubble of trepidation smothering the room, sending everyone into a desperate frenzy. The brown-haired boy drove his heel into a nearby window, trying to shatter it as the albino boy interrogated the blue-haired girl behind him. The pink-haired girl crawled to the edge of her altar and vomited, digging her nails into her temple while the androgynous teen stared at her in silence. The monk panicked when he realized how weak the red-eyed girl's pulse was, and began yelling for help as the child's wailing heightened. Their frantic souls crashed into each other like the waves, sucking them into a whirlpool that screamed for freedom, for aid, for answers, or for all of it to just be over.

Amidst the chaos, a blonde teen with bleached tips stared unfalteringly at the altar opposite to his. The last of the abductees, a girl in a black gothic lolita dress, lay flat on its surface, remaining asleep even after the shouting rose into a cacophonous storm. That peculiarity drew the boy's interest, and after a few moments of contemplation, he approached her with slow, deliberate steps.

His shadow stretched across her form, enveloping her as his gaze sharpened in intensity. To onlookers, he seemed deaf and blind to anything but her; barely aware of anything beyond the space she occupied.

Haltingly, gingerly, he touched her frighteningly cold forehead.

"Please, wake up."

And her cloudy blue eyes opened to reflect his own.

[Testing, testing. Can you kids hear me?]

A jovial yet distorted voice reverberated from the windows, causing those close to them to back away. The first to recover was the albino boy, clenching his fists in defiance. "Who are you?!" he roared gutturally, reminiscent of an angry dragon. "What have you done to us?"

[There's no need to be rude. We didn't do anything you kids didn't agree to.]

"Agreed to?" the brown-haired boy echoed, his expression souring. "I don't remember agreeing to anything. Do you guys?"

"I have no recollection of such a thing," the blue-haired girl confirmed.

Everyone else muttered their own denials, banding together now that they had eyes on a possible perpetrator. Several of them had started gearing up for a fight, while others cradled the most vulnerable of the group, as if shielding them with their bodies.

[Mass short-term amnesia, huh? I was told the ritual would come with a few side effects, but this certainly makes things a little harder.]

"You were 'told'? Are you acting on behalf of a group or organization?" asked the androgynous teen, their tone unreadable.

[Technically, we're all acting on behalf of an organization. You, me, and the rest of the kiddos scattered across the room are gonna be colleagues starting from today!]

"What? Hell no!" the brown-haired boy objected, "I'm not getting indoctrinated into some goddamn cult or supernaturalist cell!"

"The Nanyue xianren will never allow this to pass!" the pink-haired girl spat, her first words since rising from her altar. "If you don't return me to their temple at once, the consequences will be dire!"

[Unfortunately, you missed your chance to back out of this ages ago. When you kids were first invited here, you signed a contract with a very upfront non-resignation clause. As long as that contract holds, you're all bound by its terms and obligations until our department's primary mission has been completed. Don't believe me? Try saying your names. One of the clauses states that you'll be working under aliases for the duration of your employment, with your real names being censored from this point onward.]

The brown-haired girl wrapped her furisode-sleeved haori around the trembling child, doing her best to hide him from sight before clicking her tongue at the disembodied voice. "What, are text blocks going to replace our names when we say them? Life isn't an anime! I can say ███████—" Everyone's gaze snapped towards her as she grasped her throat, stunned by the static that spilled from her lips. "███████. ███████!" she shouted incoherently.

"██████…" The monk whispered, an eclectic range of emotions overtaking his features. Other attempts soon followed, all resulting in the same incomprehensible garble.

[Your levels of strength have also been raised or lowered to be equal to the dhampir's physicality.] The voice continued, unbothered by the teens' renewed efforts to escape. [The sole exception to that clause is the Executive Manager, the holder of your contracts, and the Assistant Director of the Sefirot Department.]

The androgynous teen glanced up from half the room's collective bid to shatter a window. "And who is this Executive Manager?" they asked.

[Why, it's that girl in the middle of the tree, of course! Sefirot No. 0, Executive Manager Da'at!]

"Huh…?" muttered the girl in black, barely cognizant of anything that was happening. She was supported into a sitting position by the boy with the bleached tips, who hadn't looked away from her for even a second.

"I see." The androgynous teen gazed at her neutrally, then stepped closer to the windows where several people had turned to stare at the girl. "That makes things a lot simpler."

[Wait, what are you–]

In one swift motion, they plucked the golden hairstick from the pink-haired girl's bun and charged at Da'at, aiming the pointed end at her throat.

The boy with bleached tips snapped to attention. "Stop!"

He hoisted her into his arms, trying to lift her out of the way of the attack. But he was too late. The teen's arm blitzed with startling speed, shifting the stab into a dart throw at the last second. The hairstick whistled through the air, sailing straight for Da'at's still exposed eye.

Everything went into slow motion. From the boy hurrying to shield her with his own body, to the sound of her assailant hitting the floor, tackled from behind by someone she couldn't see. Her mind whirred frantically, searching for a means of survival, but came up short.

The hairstick moved like inevitability.

And as it grazed the boy's brachium and neared her unblinking eye, something… primordial flickered in Da'at's chest.

[Oh no.]

A shockwave rippled out from her, deflecting the hairstick and suffusing everyone in a warm, golden light. At first, it seemed as though nothing had happened. The murder attempt had been averted. Everything was alright.

Then a horrific squelching sound pierced Da'at's ears, followed by a coppery wetness splashing across her face. She fell into a heap, no longer carried by the arms of a protective stranger.

For he had collapsed, torn apart by golden symbols into an unidentifiable pile of gore.

Lying on her back, Da'at grabbed weakly at his remains, mind far and away but all too present for the tragedy at hand. She pulled chunks of lung and pulverized intestine out of the heap, not knowing what to do, yet dissociatively trying to confirm that this was real, this was real, this was real.

And the boy who once held her was dead.

"Ah–" she whimpered, tears stinging her eyes as his flesh slipped from her grasp. With bloodied hands, she reached for her altar, smearing it in red as she shakily pushed herself onto her feet. Her keening tore into the unbearably silent chamber, pleading for help from someone—anyone.

That's when the stench of death hit her tenfold.

The three fighting to break through the window had become a small mountain of bodies, falling atop one another in a mound of bleeding carnage. The girl in a kimono melded with the child she swaddled in her haori, their carcasses indistinguishable from each other. Stained monk robes lay over a skeleton like a burial shroud. A black suit and a conductor's outfit wrestled themselves into a shared grave.

Blood seeped under Da'at's shoes.

"D-Did I… do this?" she asked, before realizing its fruitlessness. "It- It was me. I… I-"

Pain shot through her hip, and when she blinked, she found herself lying sideways on her altar. She wanted to comb the blood out of her hair, clean the brain matter off her face, but the knowledge that those stains were once a person—once a boy her age with hair her color—inundated her with nausea. She couldn't bring herself to touch it, but leaving it where it was made her itch, as though a scuttling brand of sin had marked her.

She killed everyone.

[-cutive Mana-]

Someone tried to kill her, and she killed everyone in turn.

[Execu- Manag-!]

She was a monster. Monster. Monster. Monster. Monster!

[EXECUTIVE MANAGER DA'AT!]

The shout tore Da'at free from her dissociative state, punching life back into her with the delicacy of a freight train. Most of her still felt numb, but a not too small part of her screamed with blind animal hatred for the voice, fettered only by her fear of further consequences.

Some of that fear must have shown on her face, because the voice let out a distorted, pitying sigh.

[Jeez, this is a mess. Listen, what happened wasn't your fault, Da'at.]

Her fear quickly switched to disbelief. Was the voice spouting platitudes to make her feel better?

[One of the stipulations of the Sephirah's' contracts is that they cannot harm the Executive Manager with the intent to kill. Doing so will automatically activate one of the safety protocols we have installed for you, blocking the attack and destroying all nearby Sephirah.]

That did not make her feel better. If anything, it made her feel violated, because 'install' implied that this power—the power that so casually ended the lives of ten others—had been given to her by these people.

"Why…?" she mumbled, wresting the word out from the hollow of her chest.

[Because you are the Executive Manager, the one who follows the star.]

The one… who follows the star.

Like a pebble dropped into a well, those words stirred the waters of her heart, shaking her awake as they sank and dissolved into a profound sense of certainty. She didn't know where it came from, or why it weighed on her soul so heavily, but the moment those words were uttered, an intrinsic part of her clicked into place.

Vaguely, she began to hear the sound of her own heartbeat, thumping evenly against her ribs despite her previous mortal terror.

Then another heartbeat joined it.

And another.

And another.

She closed her eyes.

In the darkness behind her lids, the heartbeats began to harmonize, converging into a single thread of light. It was warm, warmer than anything she'd ever known, yet not so warm as to be unsettling.

Subsumed by her instincts, she followed it.

Further, and further.

Until she ended up alone on a horizontal ladder leading to the center of a massive tree.

It was a great and terrible sight, that tree. Its bark was the color of the sun, a radiant gold, and its size was so colossal that its branches reached toward the infinite Heavens, and its roots burrowed into the farthest reaches of Hell.

But what drew her attention wasn't those dwarfing strands, but the vast worlds trapped behind them.

Suffocating heat and agonized cries seeped through the gap between the roots, while endless laments and wailings spilled from the branches above. Thousands upon thousands of hands stretched outward, howling desperately for what millions of humans have begged for in their final moments, whether they be bound for paradise or damnation.

A second chance.

Listening to their weeping for even a second made Da'at feel faint. How could anyone witness this and withstand it? How had she done exactly that, awestruck and afraid as she was?

Unheeding of her questions, her body moved forward, automatically stepping across the ladder even as she teetered over a black, bottomless abyss. Despite the seemingly vast distance between them, one of her hands reached into the branches of the tree, while the other dug into the roots.

Billions of spectral fingers clawed at her skin, but she ignored their prayers in search of the few whose heartbeats resonated with her own. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten hands found hers amidst the ceaseless wailing, the weight of their sins and virtues branding her arms with fire-forged histories.

Art thou prepared to share the pain?

Could that have been a question? Or rather, pressure to comply?

Regardless, Da'at knew her answer.

"Please…" She grasped their hands tightly. "Come back."

She pulled them out with all her strength.

Da'at fell into the abyss, dragging the souls with her back into the world of the living. The instant they crossed over, a terrible pain spread throughout her body, crushing and flaying her with sensations so excruciating that it made her wish she were dead.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

Her screams reverberated through the chamber as she writhed on her altar, her chest bursting open in a splay of golden twigs. The tendrils shot toward the mutilated bodies, entangling with them as gore and blood began rising off the ground. Even the ichor bathing her red began to peel off her skin, flying towards the corpse resting on the floor beside her.

Engulfed in a deluge of torment, Da'at didn't see how the remains began to coalesce, reforming the pulverized bodies into perfect restorations of their old selves. The wounds that healed first flashed across her body in blinding agony, striking at her intestines, her lungs, her brain, and every other organ she could name. She sobbed in helplessness, wishing that the pain would end already.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, it did.

Da'at curled in on herself, trembling in shock as ten people rose from their supposed graves. Many of them staggered or fell to their knees, horrified at the memory of dying. But it was swiftly coated by a jumble of emotions, ranging from trepidation to dread to suspicion to disbelief.

"We're… alive?" the golden-eyed boy muttered sickly.

"Our numbers haven't changed… Are we still human?" mumbled the blue-haired girl in awe.

"Never mind if we're human! What the fuck was that?!"

"Holy crap, did I just die?"

Their sudden resurrection hadn't hampered their rowdiness whatsoever. The blue-haired and pink-haired girls argued theories. The brown-haired boy restrained the instigator of this mess with a pair of handcuffs he pulled out of his jacket. The red-eyed girl had finally risen from her altar, patting her chest absently while the monk tried to collapse into a pool of formless jhāna. As their octaves continued to rise, the voice at the fault of everything held its unusual silence, leaving the newly revived kids deteriorate mentally.

One of them, however, shoved past the chaos. The albino boy observed the still curled up Da'at, who had blacked out from pain not too long ago. The boy with bleached tips huddled over her defensively, glaring at the encroacher like he might rip him to shreds at any second.

Said encroacher was unimpressed. "Move aside."

"And let us all die again?" the boy shot back, "I'm not letting you lay a finger on her."

The albino boy scoffed.

"Don't mistake me. I have no interest in killing someone so weak." He rounded the altar, looming over the two in an unwitting show of intimidation. "I just need to confirm something."

"Confirm what?"

"You know what. There's no way you didn't see it."

Their confrontation drew eyes from every corner of the room. No one wanted to get close, but all of them were listening intently.

"...Don't you dare touch her."

The boy with bleached tips reluctantly freed Da'at from his hold, turning her onto her back as gently as possible. The albino boy stared pointedly at her chest, at the abnormally untorn fabric and, most importantly, the gaping cavity hollowing out her entire mediastinum. Nestled in that cavity was a strange device made of calcified wood and golden veins, the latter acting as amber lenses to the multitude of gears running the device through its motions. At the center of the mass, a miniature clock ticked, its rhythmic sound alternating between clinking chains and fervent beats.

"That's it," the albino boy said neutrally, "That's the source of our problems."

A young girl's eldritch, artificial heart.

 

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

Etz Hayim​

---

The sun shone, for there was no alternative, and Da'at woke up on a seat warmed by its touch.

"Oh, she's waking up!"

She flinched when someone cried out beside her head, which was soon followed by a brief scuffle and a weary scolding.

"Lower your voice. There may be nothing wrong with her physically, but enduring ten deaths must have taken a toll on her psyche. Don't overwhelm her by crowding around her."

"That's rich coming from you, Mr. You-Can't-Make-Me-Leave-Her-Side."

"Being so overprotective towards a stranger is quite creepy."

"How do you keep undoing your gag?!"

Slowly, she cracked her eyes open, raising her hand to block the alien glare of the sun shining through a window. Blinking away her remaining exhaustion, she turned in the direction of the squabbling.

And found ten pairs of eyes staring back at her.

"Hey yo!" greeted the brown-haired boy, his earlier seriousness nowhere to be seen. Instead, a bright and spunky look gleamed from every corner of his face, granting him a disarmingly easygoing air. "It's good to see you up, Da'at."

"What?" Da'at said dumbly.

She looked around, half-convinced that this was some elaborate dream conjured by her pain-driven mind to cope with the agony. But regrettably, everything in her surroundings was too detailed to be anything other than real. The upholstery in the seats, the metal that rumbled as if it were alive, and the near claustrophobic way everything was packed into a rectangular space weren't something her brain could imagine, even with all the abstract impressions in the world.

The sheer foreignness of the setting planted question upon question, but the most pressing one was…

"Where…" She closed her mouth and licked her teeth for a second, bothered by the distinct fuzz clinging to her molars. "Where are we?"

"I'm so glad you asked!"

The seat in front of her quickly bent backward, revealing a man– no, a woman with light green hair and a gold-patterned, black eyepatch. She bore a wide grin brimming with unconstrained mania, looking utterly enthused to see her. Yet Da'at couldn't pin down a reason as to why, nor could she figure out where the strange familiarity the woman sparked came from.

"I've taken the liberty of answering some of the others' questions first, but now that you're awake, Executive Manager Da'at–" The girl reeled back. She was the disembodied voice from earlier! "–I can start giving you guys access to the juicier stuff!"

The woman's shoulders shook like she was about to burst into laughter. Or more accurately, into raucous cackling that'd make the wartiest witches look like schoolgirls. There was a chorus of sighs behind Da'at, and after a brief round of murmuring, someone was shoved to the front of the row.

"Ms. Alexandria," the pink-haired girl said, her expression dead as a doornail. "Her original question still needs to be addressed."

"Right, right, the bus. Haven't I told you to call me Alex?" the woman lightly chided the girl before rising from her seat. She wasn't a tall person, but her unerring confidence and masculine flair made her seem towering. "Manager Da'at, you're riding a little vehicle known as the Etz Hayim, named after Kabbalah's tree of life, of course. This place will be your transport, mobile base of operations, and place of habitation in your mission to retrieve the Sefirot Department's main objective: the Golden Boughs."

There were a lot of terms she didn't recognize, but Da'at felt her heart throb at the last part. "The Golden Boughs?"

But Alex waggled her finger 'tut-tut. "That's a whole can of worms I can't open just yet. If I do, I'll start rambling. And we have something just as, if not more, important than the Golden Boughs that needs to get done first."

"Which is…?" the brown-haired boy nudged.

"Introductions, of course!" Alex gestured the group to Da'at. "Your Executive Manager knows nothing about you guys. For the sake of our department's professionalism, this must be rectified immediately."

Da'at gaped at her, mortified. What was she doing?!

"I'm not telling you anything more until you finish," Alex added, gaining a few glares on top of the groans echoing through the cabin. "From 10 to 1, kids. Hop to it!"

No one looked happy over being denied answers, but they seemed to understand that the woman wouldn't budge unless they did as she commanded.

Rubbing his nose bridge with a sigh, the brown-haired boy stepped forward, giving Da'at a smile that felt both sorry and genuine. "If we're going in reverse order, then I'm up first. Sefirot No. 10, Codename: Malkuth."

Despite his straightforward introduction, Da'at didn't quite know what to make of him. She'd seen him serious and angry one moment, then stunningly cheerful the next. He was like a dime constantly flipping on its head, switching facets at the drop of a hat or interweaving them if he felt the need to, a professional social chameleon.

Also, "Sefirot?"

"We're the Sephirah of the Sefirot Department, which I think makes us the main agents of this whole operation." He glanced at Alex for confirmation and got a thumbs-up in return. "Yeah. As you can tell, there's a bit of a naming scheme going on."

Da'at had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn't want to look stupid, so she nodded along. "I suppose that makes No. 9…"

"Yesod!" chirped the blue-haired girl, turning away from the windows she had been frowning at with unusual intensity. "It's fascinating to know that my designated integer hasn't changed, despite my essence being fundamentally recalculated to a semiperfect number. I do wish I had known all of you before we became tied by the contract. The comparative data would have provided several insights into how our destinies became aligned to the gematria values of our emanation names!"

If Alex and Malkuth had her treading water, then Yesod's raving threw her straight into the deep end. She was passionate, eloquent, and even charming due to her youthful exuberance. Yet her manner of address and the stars in her eyes made her seem… not quite there, like she was talking to a rubber duck instead of a fellow human.

"A reading from a Numerologist of your caliber would certainly be worth the time of day," spoke a voice that made Da'at freeze. She craned her head to her right, blanching when she saw the eyes of her attempted murderer staring back at her. Their hands were restrained, and a makeshift gag had fallen to their neck, but that didn't stop their impassive smile from striking cold fear into her soul. "Greetings, Manager Da'at. I am Hod, Sefirot No. 8. I apologize for my failed attempt on your life. Your death was too enticing a solution."

She wanted to flee. Far, far away from here. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to run right now if she wanted to survive. But the best she could do was huddle behind her seat, ducking her head to keep out of their line of sight.

Hod hummed in amusement. "I know better now, Miss Manager. Rest assured, I will not endeavor to kill you– Hmpf!"

"Shut up," said the pink-haired girl, striking as quick as a snake to re-tie the gag to Hod's mouth. "You're in time-out for the next hour."

A surge of gratitude washed over Da'at, muffling the dread until it no longer rang shrilly in her head. While she didn't feel safe, knowing even one person was willing to keep Hod in line helped keep the pressure from crushing her completely.

"Thank you," she mumbled to her savior.

Her words were softer than a whisper, but the pink-haired girl seemed to catch them nonetheless. "It's no trouble. He irritates me as well." She cupped her hands and bowed slightly in a salute. "This one's name is Netzach, the Seventh Sefirot. I vow to follow your Way with piety, Manager Da'at."

The solemnness of her oath startled her greatly. People didn't normally swear utmost deference to someone else's decisions, especially if that person was hardly more than a new acquaintance. Was it a part of Netzach's culture? Did people usually expect strangers to swear fealty to them?

"That's… heartening to hear, Netzach," she said, feeling horrendously out of depth. Time to speed the introductions along so she could avoid thinking about it! "Um, who's next?"

The boy in monk robes stood up from the seat he'd taken to save walking space. He was a good bit taller than most of the group, so Da'at had no problem seeing the slightly unsure expression set on his face.

"I bow to you, Da'at." Much like Netzach, he pressed his palms together and bowed his head in greeting. "I'm called– you can call me Tiphereth. I'm Sefirot No. 6."

He was polite yet unmoored, trying to keep a sense of distance between them as he nervously went through the motions. Da'at couldn't tell if he was shy or if he held a grudge over… what happened before, but she decided to respect the boundaries he'd drawn regardless.

"It's nice to meet you." She attempted a smile.

An impatient scoff killed it in its cradle. "She is not our Manager," stressed the boy in exorcist clothes, visibly bristling at being forced to participate in this charade. "Why are any of you calling her Manager? Whatever this contract entails, it will be broken soon enough. You don't have to defer to her—"

"Geburah, chill," interrupted Malkuth, stopping the castigation before it could grow into a full-on tirade. "We talked about this, remember? Get answers first, lynch the appropriate target after."

Geburah—who no longer had to introduce himself—glared balefully at Malkuth, his hands balled up tightly near his sides. After a moment, he whipped his head to the right and crossed his arms, gripping his biceps until his nails left indents on his sleeves.

He held his silence.

Inexpressible awkwardness crept up Da'at's spine.

"...I'm Chesed," the girl with red eyes faintly muttered. The hush that descended onto the bus was the only reason she could be heard at all. "I'm the Fourth."

Her introduction was stiff and withdrawn, as if she were having an out-of-body experience. She sat slumped in a window seat next to Tiphereth, gazing listlessly at Da'at like a doll cut from its strings.

The emptiness of her stare unnerved Da'at a bit, but her decision to speak up shattered the tension building within the bus's confines. She couldn't ignore that act of kindness.

"I hope we get along, Chesed."

A flicker of sympathy flashed across Chesed's eyes before Tiphereth sat down again, his bulk hiding her from view.

Soon, the brown-haired girl in traditional clothes stepped forward, the wedges of her geta thumping against the bus's metal floor. "I'm up next," she remarked, sporting a tone so casual it bordered on sarcastic. "Hey there. Binah. Sefirot No. 3. We're pretty far up sh- mud creek without a paddle, huh?"

Humor polished her smile to a mirror shine, bringing a breath of fresh air to the otherwise pensive introduction circle. Unlike Yesod or Malkuth, Binah's demeanor had a pluckiness that lived for the moment, and she carried a hint of playfulness that seemed naturally provocative. In other words, she exuded a frivolous atmosphere, concerned over certain aspects and aloof in others.

One of those odd concerns was the constant censorship of her cussing habits. The source of this was an alarmingly young boy with dark skin and silver hair, who looked quite unimpressed with her near slip-ups.

"You don't have to switch your curse words, Binah," he declared bluntly, sounding downright sardonic compared to how he was in the chamber. "I know about all of them. Want me to demonstrate?"

"No! No, no, I believe you. I'm good." Binah waved her arms around wildly, desperate to keep the boy from resorting to such measures.

The boy huffed, folding his arms like Geburah before addressing Da'at. "Call me Hokma. You don't need me to state my number, do you?"

No, but she'd like to know what caused such a big shift in personality. Da'at was barely aware during the bedlam that occurred before… everything, but she remembered Hokma being distressed to the point of tears. Was this his true character beneath the throes of anxiety?

Actually, a more pressing question would be: "Aren't you a little young to be tied to a contract connected to a dubious company?"

Hokma narrowed his eyes at her in annoyance. "Yes. Yes, I am."

His death flashed through her mind. Guilt lodged tightly in her throat.

'He's alive again. It's okay. He's alive again.'

Monster.

Caught in a limbo of pain and regret, Da'at never noticed the person rounding the corner. A cold, weighty hand grasped her shoulder, which would have surprised her if not for the warm amity the touch carried with it. Lifting her head, she met the eyes of a boy who exuded worry, treating her with incredible tenderness.

"Don't do that," he implored quietly, adjusting the hat resting slant atop her head. "Don't make that face."

Da'at was confused. "I was making a face?"

"A real ugly one," he confirmed, "Contrition has never looked good on the innocent."

Was he trying to insult her or make her feel better?

"Uh… thanks. And who are you?" she asked.

"Keter." He gave her a gentle smile, then instantly switched gears when he turned to Alex, glaring at her with a heat to rival a thousand suns. "We're done with our introductions. Were they 'professional' enough for you?"

The air quotes were palpable even without the gesture.

"Absolutely!" Alex clapped her hands gleefully. "Miss Executive Manager must feel relieved to be able to put names to the faces!"

She was, but Da'at wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that.

"So, about the Golden Boughs…" urged Malkuth.

"The Head described them as 'small, branch-shaped items emitting a warm glow'. They're a potent energy source and host a variety of great yet not-well-understood powers. Regrettably, that's all I'm able to disclose on the matter, as research into the Golden Boughs hasn't gone beyond the realm of conjecture. Just know that they exist and that it's the Sephirah's job to collect the Golden Boughs for the company."

Da'at clutched her suddenly dizzy head. What were any of these words, and why did Alex expect them to know what they meant?

"This 'company' you keep talking about. Who are they?" asked Geburah, after wrestling himself out of his brooding.

"Man, that partial amnesia has frazzled your brains something fierce." Alex shook her head mournfully. "Okay, um… How many of you know what a secret conglomerate is?"

"This already sounds illegal," deadpanned Binah from the back.

"Please don't tell me we sold ourselves to capitalism of all things," bemoaned Tiphereth, like he'd just been told he was fed babies for breakfast.

"Well, you're half-right, Tiph. You kids, are now employed under Tikkun Company, the secret parent company of some big names like Sang Yi Agroindustries and Xueqin Bioengineering Group." More than half the group stiffened in shock. "Think of it as a big research institute and science consortium. Anything they discover, they industrialize and commercialize through their subsidiaries. Their mission is to make the world a better place… while turning a tidy profit for themselves."

"An underground organization…" Malkuth muttered, all traces of gaiety gone in favor of seriousness. "That explains their refusal to patent their technology. It's always been a point of industrial contention, but since no one has been able to replicate or steal their secrets, their lack of patents hardly even matters. The mystery of their success has been a cold case for years now."

A few people glanced at him, silently wondering why he knew enough about industrial secrets to go, 'yeah, a secret scientific consortium explains everything.'

Alex was just delighted. "Oh, aren't you a smart cookie? Yes, Tikkun Company prides itself on its Singularities, and they're depending on our department to help them take the next leap! Isn't that exciting?"

Her proud exclamation invited nothing but scorn.

"You hired eleven minors, one of whom is an eleven-year-old, on non-resignation clause contracts with reality-altering properties that I'm still not sure were consensually signed." Malkuth laughed acerbically, sweeping his hand toward the rest of the bus. "We all died because of this."

Some were muted, some were blatant, but no one could hide the instinctive flinch that came with the reminder of their deaths. Yesod shuddered profusely in the corner. Geburah winced, then clenched his jaw at his show of weakness. Chesed bundled up her skirt. Hokma ducked his head to hide his face.

And Da'at? Da'at felt sick.

"But you're back, aren't you?" Alex refuted, spreading out her arms like she was grandstanding on a stage. "She brought you back. And she can do it again and again. No matter what injuries you take, what wounds you accumulate, or whatever death strikes you, so long as her heart keeps beating, you kids will always come back."

The woman's lone eye peered at Da'at, lighting up when she saw the girl hesitantly touch the groove digging into the center of her chest. When her fingers sank past her ribs and brushed against the organ throbbing deep within, she ripped away as if burnt, horror etched on every molecule of her face.

Alex got up into Malkuth's space, smiling so reassuringly that he stumbled two steps back. "In that case, it's just good policy to ensure the Executive Manager's life! If she survives, you survive, even if the gods themselves came down to smite you." She laughed uproariously, tickled by her blaspheming as she pulled eleven sheets of black paper out from the satchel attached to her hip. "I will admit, I wasn't expecting the Sephirah to be a bunch of kids either, but them's the breaks. The Golden Boughs are very selective about where they grow."

She held the sheets out to the Sephirah, showing off the signatures written at the bottom in golden ink. They snatched them up one after another, a look of remembrance flashing over their faces as pieces of the time they'd lost came back to them.

"You weren't lying…" Netzach mumbled, a visceral fear shadowing her face.

"Incomprehensible!" Yesod fumed. "No iteration of me, irrational number or not, would agree to these terms!"

"The proof's right here, though," Hokma pointed out. "We were invited here, and they gave us numerous chances to back out. I think my interviewer tried to pressure me into leaving."

"But why didn't we leave?" Binah eyed Alex with undisguised suspicion.

Alex shrugged. "How should I know? I was assigned to be your bus driver and general supervisor. The specifics of your contracts are between you and your interviewer."

"You are of no help. No help whatsoever," disparaged Geburah.

"God, we actually signed these, didn't we?"

"They could be faked!"

"Our day-to-day operations may involve combat or other associated conflict-related activities…"

"Is that why this contract doubles as a death waiver?!"

Like before, everyone's voices rose in defiance of their circumstances, trying to drown each other out with waves of emotion. Anger, disbelief, resignation, realization—they tossed and turned the boats of their hearts, plunging them into a roiling sea. Chaos reigned. Someone grabbed Alex by the collar. But the discord washed over Da'at like white noise, ringing deafeningly in her ears as she stared at her contract, signed with no name, just a golden thumbprint.

The Sephirah seemed to recall something when they saw their contracts. Something that verified Alex's statements that they were here of their own free will. She could see it settle in their minds, casting both clarity and doubt over their souls.

Yet she couldn't feel the same, because…

"I don't remember anything."

Her voice cut through the racket, pulling everyone's attention her way.

"And I'm not just talking about what happened when I signed the contract. My past, my goals, my precious ones, even my real name… I can't remember any of it."

The Sephirah were stunned into silence. It was clear that her experience wasn't shared amongst them. They knew who they were, what they used to do, and what their old names were. So, why was she different? Was it… was it because of this heart—

"Oh, so I'm not the only one who has complete amnesia?"

What.

Da'at looked up in shock, her thoughts blown to smithereens by the bomb Keter dropped like a hot potato. He seemed almost relieved, which she supposed was the appropriate reaction to learning you weren't the only outlier in a group, but what?

Alex freed herself from Geburah's stranglehold.

"Well," she said, speaking evenly for the first time since they met. "I need to make a call."

The ominous foreboding in that statement was not appreciated.

---

A/N: And that's it for the first batch of chapters! Welcome to the bus, kids. You're not getting off.

 

[Tiberan]

Interesting stuff, watched.

I knew the moment the blue haired girl was 37 the instant she said all of those numbers.

 

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

Interesting stuff, watched.

I knew the moment the blue haired girl was 37 the instant she said all of those numbers.

Click to shrink...

Lemme tell you right now, the research I've done to make her math sound legit (both in real terms and mystical terms) is enough to make me cry. It was still very fun, though.

Thank you for watching!

 

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

Pit Stop​

---

Etz Hayim rumbled down the road in silence, the bars on the windows casting a broken view of the desert flitting past. A discouraged atmosphere had settled on the bus, not helped by the barren landscape stretching out for miles around them. It instilled a sense of hopelessness, a heavy reminder of their weakened states and the contract that bound them all to the same level.

Da'at hadn't imagined that they'd take off so soon. Ten minutes after Alex made the call back to Tikkun Company, a host of masked men entered the bus through the grand doors at the back of the vehicle, bringing an array of modern and medieval weapons with them. The Sephirah instantly got into a defensive huddle, only to be completely disarmed when the masked men handed the armaments to them.

Everyone was given something they seemed to be familiar with: Yesod got gauntlets, Netzach a spear, Binah a katana, Geburah twin swords, Hod a rapier, and Hokma a dagger (which he wielded with startling dexterity for a prepubescent child). Then some received more esoteric armaments—Malkuth was given an assault rifle, Tiphereth got a heavy axe, Chesed obtained a spiked hammer, and Keter got a… box? A heavy metal box made of composite parts, which he barely knew how to unlock or operate.

He said he would use it as a bludgeon until he got the hang of it. A practical decision, though Da'at swore she heard the masked man handing it to him wheeze in agony at the compromise.

After everyone equipped themselves with their new weapons and the amnesiacs got health check-ups from a medic, Alex received an order from the Head of Tikkun Company. Deploy immediately, the messenger relayed. The masked men disappeared behind the door again, and Alex kicked Etz Hayim into top gear.

Now they were here, traveling through the middle of nowhere, armed and dangerous yet isolated all the same. Some of the more volatile Sephirahs' hands twitched toward their new weapons, but they ultimately resisted, acknowledging the futility of violence in this situation.

Da'at wished for many things: her memories back, her own weapon, for Alex to tell them anything about where they were going or what Tikkun Company expected of them. Anything that could give her a sign, a clearer vision of what she had to do.

What did managing the Sephirah even entail?

She rolled the question around in her head, feeling mired in uncertainty. The only thing she knew how to do was revive the Sephirah, and that…

PainPainPainPainPainPAINPAINPAIN

…Da'at hoped she wouldn't have to do it again.

"So, are any of you kids gonna ask me where we're going?" Alex piped up from the driver's seat. Her jovial tune returned moments after the medics finished Da'at and Keter's examination, which Da'at was unexpectedly thankful for. The calmness and how it had made her one eye focus penetrated her soul in a way that left her shivering. She now preferred the woman's energetic state, if only because it offset the sheer intensity she could invoke.

There was a brief shuffle as the Sephirah glanced at each other, wondering who was going to take the bait. This size-up was unnecessary, as Yesod instantly rose from her seat like a fish eager to meet air.

"Where are we going, Miss Alexandria?" she asked, playing with the ends of her freshly braided hair. In addition to the weapons, those wearing robes were offered a change of clothes more suitable for everyday wear. Yesod wore a short green dress with a crinoline and leather sandals, a huge step up from her previous shoeless outfit.

"My man!" Alex praised, making Yesod beam. "Right now, we're in the middle of Nevada, USA. Our target area is a bit farther down this route, but since we aren't in a time crunch, I'll be making a pit stop at the next gas station I see. Does anyone want some snack money? It's on me until you kids get your first paycheck."

"At least we are getting paid," Binah muttered peevishly.

Her seating partner, Keter, gave her a small but sympathetic pat on the back.

Yesod skipped forward, bombarding Alex with mathematical questions that she answered with the confidence of a scholar. As Da'at's eyes followed her, they also fell upon the boy sitting opposite to her, Malkuth. He was inspecting his gun, familiarizing himself with its functions, while biting his lip and deep in thought.

Should she… ask him what's wrong?

A part of her wanted to reach out, to ask what was on his mind. Yet a larger part of her told her to stay in her seat, swallow her words, and keep to herself.

Because Da'at didn't know Malkuth, they were brought together under extenuating circumstances, and while she was his manager, that didn't give her the right to pry into his thoughts. What could an amnesiac like her do anyway? She didn't know enough to understand a turkey, let alone a human being.

In the end, she turned to look out the window, letting Alex and Yesod's chatter drain her will into the gutter.

---

The gas station they pulled up to was dusty and near abandoned, staffed only by an old man sleeping at the cash register. Etz Hayim parked in the middle of the station, its doors sliding open with a hiss as Alex waved two $20 bills between her fingers.

"Take your time, kids," she said as Binah ran to snatch the bills. She alighted the bus, followed by Tiphereth, Chesed (led by Tiphereth), Yesod, and Malkuth. "I've got a few things I need to teach the Executive Manager before we get moving again."

Da'at stiffened in trepidation. "There's more?"

"Well, yeah!" Alex craned her head backward, staring at her upside-down over her seat. "Being an amnesiac complicates matters somewhat, but I put this on your lesson plan way before we figured that out. Just think of it as a tutorial. Something to grease those squeaky wheels of yours so they don't stall during a fight."

Personally speaking, Da'at didn't want to learn anything from this woman, but the anticipation in her growing smile spoke volumes about how poorly a rejection would go down. She decided to bite the bullet.

"What is it then?" she asked, fidgeting with her gloves.

"Why tell when I can show-and-tell?" Alex hopped out of her seat, motioning for Da'at to follow her.

Stalling for time by smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress, Da'at glanced at those who remained on the bus, wondering if she should ask one of them to accompany her. Geburah caught her eye first, but his vaguely mutinous expression discouraged her right out the gate. She felt bad even considering Hokma. Netzach was sitting on the side seats, keeping an eye on Hod as they tapped their heels in methodical rhythm. And since she wanted to be near Hod even less than she wanted to follow Alex, Netzach wasn't an option.

Which left…

"Keter?" Da'at looked to his seat, where he'd been staring at her for who knows how long. "Could you come with me, please?"

His reply was immediate. "Gotcha."

"Oh, yeah! Good idea, Da'at," Alex crowed as Keter took point, placing himself in front of Da'at like a wall. "I was planning on grabbing one of the kids outside for this showcase, but grabbing a Sefirot of your own is just as swell."

Da'at cowered behind Keter, her concern for him surging at the implications of Alex's statement. Had she unknowingly volunteered him to be a guinea pig of some sort? She wanted to scream, to tell Alex to leave the Sephirah alone, but her heart wavered. And in her gutlessness, she kept her mouth glued shut.

Keter shifted his stance, holding his arm out protectively to hide her as best he could. He reminded her of what it was like to feel safe.

It felt shameful.

Alex blinked slowly at the posturing. "Relax, Keter. Da'at is the last person this thing will hurt."

"Just go," Keter snapped.

Holding her hands up in mock surrender, Alex stepped off the bus, with Keter and Da'at following a few steps behind. Upon exiting Etz Hayim, they found the bus's side panel open, revealing the teeth of an inactive shredder. Its saws were as clean as a whistle, which made the pair breathe a sigh of relief for some reason.

"Here." Alex shoved a blocky device into Da'at's hands. "This is your manager's pad. You can use it to keep notes, manage the Sephirah, and do a whole load of other tricks I'm gonna teach you about today."

Confused, Da'at shook the pad next to her ear, which in turn made Keter pinch his nose bridge in disgust. Without so much as a 'please', he grabbed the pad out of her hands and pressed a button on its side to turn it on.

"How come you remember how to use technology while I don't?" Da'at complained, taking the pad back from him.

"We seem to have kept basic life skills like walking and talking," Keter said. "Maybe I was just better at it than you."

"You presume too much."

"You jostled it like a birthday present."

Before Da'at could come up with a winning retort, Alex cleared her throat, interrupting their banter.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you two in high spirits despite the whole…" She tapped her temple twice. "...missing memory debacle, but I do need you to pay attention. This will make or break your future operations."

"Sorry," Da'at apologized half-heartedly. Keter didn't even bother.

If Alex was upset about their insincerity, she didn't show it. She pushed a red button on the side of the compartment, opening the jaws of the shredder to expose ten lengths of iron chains. Hooked to the sides of the shredder's chamber, they extended far into a void that couldn't have fit into Etz Hayim's frame, clinking faintly as they shook from the bus's rumbling engine.

"There once was a group of inventors known as the League of Nine Littérateurs. They were geniuses who nurtured a love for creation, hosting secret meetings where they could share their ideas to their hearts' content," Alex explained, her admiration for these people ringing loud and clear. "One of them invented a device called a 'Glass Window', which could display the myriad possibilities of anything under its lens. Inspired by this invention, another researcher addressed the flaws of the 'Window' and created their own version: a device that could not only display possibilities but also hone in on them to witness and communicate with the lives of those from other worlds. This technology, taking the form of a 'Mirror', was named 'Yeonsim'."

"Yeonsim?" Da'at echoed, her soft tone carrying traces of her unwitting amazement.

"It's a Korean composite word, meaning 'to grind or study' and 'to seek."

While he tried to remain stoic, Keter couldn't help but feel curious about Alex's story. "And what does that have to do with our operations? Is it integrated into the pad? Was the 'Mirror' harnessed into a combat prediction system of sorts?"

Alex's lone eye sparkled at his guesses. "Yes and no. While the manager's pad has a Tactical Interface installed on it, the 'Mirror' has no relation to it. Remember what I said about 'Mirror' technology being able to communicate with lives across the multiverse? The Chief of Tikkun Company took it one step further and integrated another function: fusing an individual with an Identity, another version of themselves from another world. It took a lot of trial and error to decrease the risk of memory overwriting, but after months of refinement, I'm proud to announce that the Identity System is as safe to use as can be!"

Keter's curiosity waned, and the two teens shared a distrustful look. While her explanation of the 'Mirror' and its connection to the multiverse sounded cool, the mention of risk had brought their interest crashing down to earth.

Why did they need this 'Identity system' anyway?

Unbothered by their wary expressions, Alex reached into her jacket, pulling out a rectangular piece of paper. It was a ticket, shimmering yellow and white, with a block font "10" flickering on and off the print. Though the paper glitched sporadically, as if it were trying to scatter across realities, the bright red stamp on its front never faded, anchoring it to the present.

"The deca-extraction ticket." Alex raised the ticket to the sun, the light refracting through it as if it were the lens of a kaleidoscope. "It works as a catalyst to boost Etz Hayim's fuel to the critical point we need for Mirror World extraction. Takes ages to print, but the gambling addicts at the R&D Section can't get enough of them."

She threw the ticket towards Da'at, the slip flying in an abnormally straight path before Keter intercepted its route. He caught it between his fingers, squinting at it suspiciously as it glitched into three different versions of itself.

"Deca-extraction tickets are supposed to be used exclusively by the Manager…" Alex warned, in contrast to her growing smirk. "Buuuuuuut if you wanna test it out yourself, I can sweep it under the rug as a 'training accident'."

Keter and Da'at matched looks of uncannily similar confusion.

"Is that– Are you sure?" Da'at asked, glancing worriedly between Alex and Keter.

"Yeah, I'm sure!" Alex pumped her fists. "C'mon, throw it in! I know you want to."

The manager was tempted, quite tempted in fact, to let Keter take the brunt of the risk onto himself. But the shame from earlier reared its ugly head. Before he could even consider giving in to Alex's goading, Da'at stole the ticket and tossed it into the shredder.

"Da'at!" Keter objected, a bit too late.

Its maw snapped shut, teeth whirring to life as Etz Hayim grumbled like a starving monster. Light flared behind the blades, and the shredder popped open to reveal a pulsating orb, bound in the rattling chains that had decoupled from the sides of the machine. As Da'at peeked into the shredder, blood pounded in her ears, lulling her into a trance that made her dizzy and focused at the same time.

On instinct, she reached inside.

The orb shifted, shooting the ten chains out into the now shimmering void. Invisible hooks broke through the glass, forming rifts of different colors corresponding to particular Sefirot. The rifts glowed brightly for a second before the chains spun rapidly, reeling in thin, rectangular cards that were deposited gently into Da'at's waiting hand.

Lifting those out of the shredder, the orb and the shimmers vanished somewhere deep in Etz Hayim, while the chains reattached themselves to their resting places. The shredder snapped shut, and the bus's roar quieted, bringing everything back to a state of equilibrium.

Alex squealed.

"You got Identities for everyone on your first try!" she celebrated, leaning into Da'at's space so she could see the cards. "Since this system is exclusive to the Sefirot Department, the devs down in R&D did a bit of color-coding to make it simpler for you. You can see which color belongs to whom by inputting the cards into your manager's pad! Here, let me show you where to put them…"

The bus driver popped open a socket on the edge of the device, where Da'at inserted the cards one by one. [NEW IDENTITIES DETECTED] flashed across the screen before it changed to a team setup menu, overwriting the portraits of the Sephirah as Da'at knew them with pictures of them in distinct circumstances. She saw Netzach in a detective uniform, Chesed wearing spy gear, Hokma leading a troupe of animals wielding guns, and Geburah as a butler armed to the teeth.

"The type of possibilities you can pull from the Mirror varies, but the higher the Sephirahs' base threshold for power is, the more likely it is for them to get stronger Identities. You'll also expand the diversity of Identities whenever you meet people from influential factions or other organized parties, since in the limitlessness of the Mirror Worlds, there's every chance a Sefirot might have tossed their hat in with their lot." Alex finally backed away from Da'at, giving her a chance to breathe. "With this, the Sephirah can now act with skill far beyond their current ability. All that's left is to confirm the 'overwrite' by tapping the ID you want them to equip."

Feeling slightly overwhelmed, Da'at hugged the pad to her chest, stepping back into line beside Keter. The boy was rubbing his head exasperatedly, giving her a mild stink-eye that reeked of poorly processed distress.

"Next time, warn me before you start putting your hands in an active shredder," he said crankily.

"...I might have to do it again," the manager noted, then backpedaled on when she saw Keter's distress spike. "But nothing bad happened this time! It's a bit scary, but the process seems harmless!"

His face told her that it didn't reassure him one bit.

Behind them, a bell rang farewell to Binah and Yesod. The former came out carrying a plastic bag full of snacks, while the latter chugged a soda can as if she had never tasted a sugary drink in her life.

Binah was the first to spot Da'at and Keter, and raised her free hand for a casual hello. Then she paused, any greeting dying on her lips as she registered what exactly they were standing next to.

"Why does the bus have a shredder in it?" she asked.

"To summon alternate versions of ourselves through," Keter summed up.

Naturally, the girl squinted at him in disbelief.

"Miss Alexandria, I have tried to keep in mind the sensibilities of those who are mired in the phenomenal world, but I cannot hold it in any longer! I must protest!" Yesod cried, her face scrunched up into a look of cute irritation. "The Etz Hayim, while a marvel of engineering, is also a serious abuse of rectangles! You're not taking into account the geometric stability of your shapes at all! The inclusion of circles barely redeemed it before, but the inclusion of more rectangles in its internal mass means that the bus will require a higher ratio of balancing shapes!"

"That's what you're focusing on?" Binah's disbelief rapidly switched targets.

Yesod compounded her incredulity by launching a string of numbers and geometrical values at Alex, who nodded at her points patiently until she ran out of steam.

"Now, Yesod, your suggestions are appreciated," she said, as if Yesod hadn't told her to replace all the window frames with triangle-shaped ones. "But Etz Hayim has a lot of delicate—well, not delicate, but 'unstable'—technology incorporated into its body. You can lodge a complaint to the engineers who made it, but the only ideas they'd accept are probably the aesthetic ones."

The blue-haired girl huffed, obviously dissatisfied. Seeing her wind up for another tantrum, Da'at thought that maybe she should intervene before things snowballed further.

"Can this please wait a moment? Keter and I were about to test out wearing an Identity, an alternate version of yourself that I can equip onto you using this pad." Da'at cringed at how soft-spoken she sounded, thinking her words dripped with insecurity. Nonetheless, they managed to capture the girls' attention.

"Oh damn, you weren't kidding?" Binah gasped.

The boy gave Da'at a piercing stare that, while acquiescing, promised untold consequences if this feeble attempt at a distraction turned south.

"No, I wasn't," he said flatly.

Intrigued by the new, shiny concept of Identities, Yesod turned her glittering eyes onto the PDA.

"Is that the implement you'll use for the conversion?" she asked, circling the manager like a squirrel on the hunt for nuts. She reminded Da'at of Alex that way, which tracked, seeing as they seemed to live on the same wavelength.

"It is," the manager replied, hoping the pad's rectangular nature wouldn't set her off. "According to Alex, all I have to do is tap… this picture."

She touched the image depicting Keter, and the card ignited in a golden light. At the same time, Keter's body… refracted, for a lack of a better word. Glass overlaid the space where he stood, fracturing to reflect several versions of Keter in each shard. Those shards flipped and turned, displaying a myriad of colors in constant motion, changing thousands of times a microsecond until the pieces began to line up.

The mirror repaired itself, the now-matching shards slipping seamlessly into place as the cracks and faults healed over. When the crystalline cocoon encasing Keter shed, he emerged from it transformed—still himself, yet someone entirely new.

Gone were his heavy-duty outerwear and tactical turtleneck. In their place, a tailored black suit with silver lines on the collar and pants hugged his form perfectly, giving him an air of sophistication enhanced by the adjustment of his tie. His hair had grown out, needing to be tied into a ponytail that brushed against his nape. He was the very image of a gold standard butler.

Save for a few glaring discrepancies.

His arms, exposed by his rolled-up sleeves, weren't made of flesh and bone. They were prosthetics, colored pure white to imitate the neatness of a butler's gloves. Twin pistols were holstered at his sides, and as he bowed to Da'at, four thin blades stretched out from his lower back, mimicking the wings of a dragonfly.

"Good afternoon, Master," he greeted. Binah breathed a quiet 'whoa' at the formal term of address. "I am Keter, a humble butler from Boutonnière Housekeeping Services. Though our relationship is based on a fixed-term contract, I shall protect you and handle your orders to the best of my ability."

Da'at had one reaction to that.

"What's a butler?" she inquired of the other girls, completely missing the surprised twitch of Keter's blades.

"How do you not— Oh, right, the amnesia…" Coughing into her fist at her misstep, Binah did her best to explain. "Butlers are more of a Western concept, but they're essentially manservants that work in the houses of the rich or famous. Sometimes ordinary but well-off folks can hire one from a temp service, which is where Keter comes from, I think."

"Are butlers usually licensed to carry guns?" Yesod asked.

"That's more of a bodyguard thing…?"

Three pairs of eyes turned to Keter, their blue irises burning with naked curiosity.

The butler tittered, somehow making it sound professional. "I know that our open-carry policy tends to unnerve first-time clients, but I can assure you that a Boutonnière butler will never harm their master. You bought our protection package to shield yourself against such brutality, after all."

That only piled on more questions, but before they could ask any of them, a loud clap drew their attention.

"Sadly, our new butler can't give us a live demonstration of his prowess. A bit rude to do that in a public station, ya feel me?" Alex said as she closed the side panel. "Still, nothing is stopping you from trying out the other Identities! Binah, Yesod, you girls want to give them a whirl? Manager Da'at pulled out one for each of you."

"That's—" Da'at began warily.

"A fantastic idea!"

Yesod shoved her tiny body into Da'at's arms, tapping her card portrait on the PDA's screen. The manager yelped, stepping away from the girl as she underwent the same transformation Keter did, emerging from the mirror shards in a customized police uniform with her hair tied up in a braid.

"Officer Yesod from SWAT 5, arriving on the scene!" she introduced herself, a pair of handcuffs jangling from her belt. "Responding to Protocol-9271-S3."

"Ah, an officer of the law. Would you be willing to overlook my use of weaponry, young miss? I swear that they shall only be used in self-defense." Keter smiled.

"Article 51 of the UN Charter," was all she said.

Despite their different backgrounds, Keter and Yesod acted with obvious familiarity, bringing a new question to the forefront of Da'at's mind.

"Do these Identities know each other?" she asked their current expert.

Alex fiddled with her side-tail. "Some of the Identities you pull might share a Mirror World, and their dynamics can differ depending on the universe. But this is more a case of the 'overlay' kicking in. While the personality at the forefront is the Identity you've equipped, the 'base' feeds them information so they aren't confused by what's going on. It's also the reason why anything a Sefirot learns while wearing an Identity isn't forgotten after it's unequipped."

That's certainly convenient. Da'at hated to admit it, but the developers of this system put a lot of thought and effort into it. To think they could use it for their daily operations…

Watching all this from the side, Binah sighed and scratched her wrist. "Why does that have to look so cool…? Da'at, can I try it out too?"

The manager sent her a deadpan look. What did she think this was, a carnival attraction?

But a flash of red and copper crushed any resistance she had to her request. One touch later, Binah was wearing… the same outfit as before. Nothing seemed to change about her at all, until she stretched languidly and two black bat wings popped out of her spine.

"A manager, huh? That's new," she mused, holding out a hand to shake. "Knight of some no-name Peerage, Binah. Care to shake a Devil's hand, Miss Manager?"

Before Da'at could respond, Yesod slapped a pair of cuffs on the self-proclaimed Devil.

"You're under arrest for solicitation, unregistered Devil madam!" she barked.

"What?!" Binah squawked, flabbergasted. "Yesod, wait, it's me! What the heck, girl?!"

Yesod ignored her, twisting her arm behind her back as she read her her rights. "You have a right to remain silent! Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law! You have the right to an attorney…"

The convenience store bell rang again, this time heralding the return of Tiphereth and Chesed.

"Why are the three of you wearing cosplay?" asked a rightfully confused Tiphereth, who had exchanged his monk robes for a more breathable black shirt, beige jacket, and grey pants.

Da'at primed herself to explain, but without warning, all of the Identity-wearing Sephirah launched toward Tiphereth with warm greetings, suddenly uninterested in continuing their spectacle. Bewildered by the pleasantries coming at him from the gaggle of familiar yet unfamiliar faces, he let go of Chesed, whom he had been guiding while in her zombie-like state.

The red-eyed girl stumbled around the group and fell listlessly against Da'at. Despite having recently left a cold store, her chalky skin was drenched with sweat.

"…Hot…" she mumbled miserably.

Da'at carefully directed her to the air-conditioned bus, unsure if she could climb the stairs by herself. Chesed… certainly tried to prove her wrong, but halfway up, she melted into a sweaty puddle on the steps.

Breaking away from the crowd, a pale-faced Tiphereth hurriedly climbed into the bus, grabbing Chesed's slumped form along the way. Part of Da'at wanted to ask what was bothering him, but by the time she formed the first syllable, the bus doors had slid shut.

The manager suddenly felt very tired.

"I…" she stuttered, licking her lips. "I think that's enough Identity wearing for now."

She tapped the images of Keter, Yesod, and Binah, undoing their transformations. In a shattering of glass, the three returned to their 'base' forms, visibly struggling to reorient themselves as the weirdness of becoming someone else—that was also another version of themselves—hit them all at once.

"Argh, my back…" Keter groaned, feeling the phantom ache of his Identity's prim and proper posture.

"Did I… turn into a Reincarnated Devil?" Binah muttered, touching the space on her back where her wings popped out.

Yesod seemed to have checked out mentally. She rummaged through the plastic bag for another soda, sticking the can to her head as a makeshift compress.

"The quantum phase difference between Identities attempting to occupy the same space takes a lot out of first-timers," Alex chimed in, patting each Sefirot on the shoulder. "The synchronization rate will get better with continuous exposure and uptying—I'll elaborate more on that at a later date."

The door slid open as she ushered everyone into the bus, telling them to grab some water from the break room to drink. Under the shadow of the gas station's canopy, or distorted by the haze of the desert heat, Alex could have been mistaken for an attentive teacher, looking after her students on an overlong field trip.

Da'at hugged her PDA wearily.

"Ms. Alex," she said, shuddering when the bus driver's lone eye landed on her. "How much longer before we reach our destination?"

"From here?" Alex calculated the distance. "Should take around forty minutes, maybe more. I'll need to go off-road to get us there, but that should be more than enough time for you to familiarize yourself with general team tactics. You can read up on it on your PDA!"

Forty minutes… Could she learn enough about tactics to lead the others to victory in that time? Da'at doubted it. Still, what else could she do? From Alex's musings and the contract stipulations, the Sefirot Department was expected to undergo regular strenuous combat scenarios. Battles that might end in someone's death.

Da'at didn't want the others to die because of her. She feared the pain of bringing them back. She feared the anguish of losing them in the first place.

Monster

Swallowing her doubts, she nodded resignedly. She didn't know anything about fighting, but if she could alleviate that flaw of hers even a little, then she would listen to Alex's suggestion.

"Hop on the bus, Da'at." Alex climbed the first step into Etz Hayim. "We're leaving as soon as Malkuth comes back."

"Good timing on my part then."

The click of a switch echoed throughout the gas station as a gun barrel pressed against the back of Alex's head. Da'at froze, stiltedly turning toward the bearer of that gun, her neck breaking out in a cold sweat.

Malkuth smiled dangerously.

"Hands up, Ms. Alex," he ordered, "I had my suspicions about where we were going, and thanks to you, I managed to confirm them. Tell me how you know about that place."

"What place?" Alex asked, utterly at ease as she heeded his first demand.

"The only place that's forty minutes out from this gas station. The only place that could have any relation to this department's roster and objective."

He steadied his grip, stepping into point-blank range.

"A place called Area 54."

---

A/N: Welcome to Canto I: The Unabating! I have some chapters saved up, but I'm gonna update this gradually (hopefully). Only some of these kids can be called sane, and it's probably not who you're thinking.

Let's see where the plot goes, everybody!

 

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

Vehicle Requisition​

---

The energy in the bus was unbearable.

Some of the Sephirah were chatting on one side of the bus, sharing snacks and stories as Binah and Yesod's soda cans loosened lips and bolstered spirits. Keter was graciously pressing a cold can to Yesod's head as she regaled the others with the experience of wearing an Identity, smiling brightly when they listened to her with interest. Even the more standoffish members of their group—Geburah and Hokma—pricked up their ears to her story with assorted drinks in hand.

Then Alex entered, hands up with a gun to the back of her head, and the affable mood died instantly.

"Malkuth?!" Netzach yelled, surprise coloring her face as the 10th Sefirot held their bus driver at gunpoint. "What are you doing?!"

In contrast, Hod was openly amused. "Ooh~ Not who I was expecting to rebel first. Did you discover something that particularly rankled you, Malkuth?"

"Sit. Now." Malkuth ignored Hod's question, instead pushing Alex into a seat while keeping his eyes and barrel trained on her at all times. "What do you know about that place?"

The other Sephirah glanced at each other questioningly. What place?

"Not a thing," Alex said, smiling nonchalantly even as Malkuth held her under threat. "You probably won't believe me, but I don't know a single thing about that place. I only know how to get there."

Malkuth snorted, rolling his eyes at her reply. Though his expression was casual, he held his weapon with a steadiness that spoke volumes of his readiness to shoot.

"Yeah, right. You, and by extension, Tikkun Company, happen to have coordinates to a top-secret location that also happens to be related to one of the people you've 'hired', and you don't know anything about it? You can at least put some effort into your lies. I won't hold it against you."

"Wait, hold on," Keter interrupted, glancing anxiously between Malkuth, Alex, and the newly arrived Da'at. "What is happening? What top-secret location are you talking about?"

"Can't go into details. I don't want to get you guys arrested for wrongful possession of military secrets." Malkuth gave him a reassuring grin. "All you need to know is that this bus was headed over to that place, which shouldn't be possible unless someone in Tikkun discovered the coordinates. And since everything going on is pretty blatantly supernatural, I need to figure out how badly everything's been compromised and trace it back to the source. Starting with you."

He cocked his head at Alex, prodding her to speak. Da'at had seen that look in his eyes once before, during the introduction session, where he laid into the woman with sarcasm venomous enough to kill. But unlike that time, he seemed more… at ease. He carried his gun and the promise of death without wavering, completely settled in his own skin.

"Talk," he commanded.

Alex shrugged and obliged.

"I'm not lying," she stated coolly, "Tikkun Company only gave me the coordinates, but you aren't wrong to think you're connected to our intended destination. While the locations where the Golden Boughs appear are random to us, they tend to germinate in places that have the highest chance of meeting certain criteria. Following that logic, Tikkun sent invitations to individuals who met the same criteria to gather the assets necessary to locate and 'grow' the Golden Boughs. Usually, that means you'll have a connection to the place we're going to, but we don't have enough data to know if that correlation's a constant or not."

Malkuth's grip slackened a bit, the implications of Alex's words hitting him with the force of a runaway truck. And he wasn't the only one. The bus driver's straightforward explanation caused a stir within the Sephirah's ranks, many of them coming to the same conclusion.

"Does that make us 'compasses'?" Hokma asked, face set in stone. "Or 'fertilizer'?"

"Not the most flattering description," Binah grumbled under her breath.

"I'd rather not beat around the bush." Hokma side-eyed her.

"The reasoning behind your selection is as random as the Golden Boughs," Alex replied, "All I know is that you kids need to 'resonate' with those Boughs to bring them out into the open. My current hypothesis—and this is just my speculation, so take my words with a grain of salt—is that the Boughs need a particular set of 'nutrients', and choose an environment saturated with those 'nutrients' to sow themselves in, therefore speeding up their development. I can't be sure of anything without getting my hands on a sample, though."

"Then our mission to gather the Golden Boughs may take us to places we're familiar with?" Da'at approached Alex carefully, but stopped after getting a warning glance from Malkuth.

Alex giggled, as if Da'at had said something silly. "Basically, yeah. This is the Sefirot Department's first excursion to retrieve a Golden Bough, so we're setting the standard here. But those were the basic parameters that went into your recruitment. I guess you could say you kids were hand-picked by fate."

"Bullshit," Geburah growled.

"It's no more impossible than the world we live in, no?" Hod countered, smiling on instinct. "But to summarize Miss Alex's explanation, the Golden Boughs chose their 'gardens' based on a logic we cannot comprehend, and your company adhered to that same logic to recruit us, the Sephirah, to guide the way to the Golden Boughs and germinate them via… 'resonating with them', was it?"

"Eyup!" Alex confirmed.

Hod's smile neither widened nor dimmed, but a slightly knowing look had entered their eyes.

At the same time, Malkuth's casual demeanor began to falter. He looked lost. Afraid. And though his hold of the gun didn't lower in the slightest, Alex's exposition rattled him enough that his grin showed more panic than confidence.

"What about when these Boughs start to grow?" he asked, words tinged with desperation. "Does anything anomalous happen to the 'garden' or to anyone in its general area?"

Several eyes widened. Tiphereth made a noise of alarmed understanding.

Alex put a finger to her chin, humming as she pondered. "I can't give you an exact rundown since we haven't observed any effects in action before, but we'll probably see some form of reaction once someone is 'chosen' as a Bough's resonator. You guys are the most likely candidates for that, but if another person comes into direct contact with a Golden Bough, they could forcibly resonate with it and jumpstart— Wait, what are you doing?"

Malkuth scrambled for the driver's seat, nearly knocking Da'at over as he threw himself behind the wheel and twisted the keys still jammed in the ignition. Etz Hayim roared to life, and before anyone could blink, he had a hand on the gear shift and adjusted the rear-view mirror.

Slightly deranged black eyes reflected at them from its surface.

"Requisitioning this bus for United States Special Operations Command, effective immediately!"

He slammed his foot on the gas.

And everyone not sitting got tossed around the bus, colliding with the velvet seats or the hard, metal floor as they became victims of the laws of motion.

---

"Oh my gods, Malkuth, give the wheel back to Alex-san!"

"Watch the cacti! Watch the cacti!"

"So, we agree that I get to punch you once the moment you stop driving."

"Guys, stop distracting him! We'll crash!"

"Bold of you to assume I haven't driven in worse conditions!"

Half the Sephirah were up near the front, arguing with Malkuth as they held onto the rails and each other for dear life. Binah was pleading with him. Yesod was backseat driving. Geburah was arranging an act of vengeance upon him. Hokma was the only one using his brain. And Da'at groaned as she undid the aches and pains everyone suffered from their sudden ragdolling, a trick she recently learned from the completely unfazed Alex.

"It's prudent to heal the Sephirah's wounds before you're forced to bring them back from the dead. You'll be vulnerable either way, but after you've gotten some pain tolerance under your belt, healing an injury will be a snap fix compared to the agony of reviving them!" the green-haired woman explained cheerfully.

Da'at winced, earning a squeeze on her shoulder from Keter. He had helped her to her feet after she fell and escorted her to the nearest set of seats, which unfortunately happened to be the side-facing seats belonging to Hod and Netzach.

"I certainly feel the difference," she said after a pause. Compared to the indescribable torture that ripped through her during that first revival, the bumps and bruises she healed felt like love taps. She stared at her hands, feeling uneasy at the thought. Would there be a day when even dozens of revivals could feel bearable?

Netzach tipped her head at her distress. "I will endeavor not to give you cause for grief, Manager Da'at," she vowed from the bottom of her heart.

"That's… good." The manager shuffled in her seat. She still didn't know how to deal with the 7th Sefirot's intense deference.

Hod chuckled at her misery. "Is such submissiveness too much for you, Manager?"

Keter moved to gag him again, but stopped when he saw Alex hop to her feet. Brushing some imaginary dust off her sleeves, she waltzed into the front row and parted the crowd with a smile.

"Excuse me, pardon me~" she said, shoving her way to the driver's seat. After taking a glance out the front window, she cracked her knuckles…

"Yoink!"

…and lifted Malkuth out of the seat like a cat.

Someone shrieked as the bus careened from the loss of its driver, but Alex just tossed the flabbergasted Malkuth to the back. Like a sack of potatoes, he fell to the aisle floor with a loud thump, his frantic drive spilling out of him as he lay wincing on his side.

Geburah prodded his shin with his foot and snorted. Da'at distantly noted that this was the first time she'd seen him with a look that wasn't on some spectrum of pissed.

"Never mind that punch, I'll take this instead."

"Can someone help him up?" Alex requested as she slid into the driver's seat, readjusting the rearview mirror without slowing down whatsoever. "I'd rather not have been so rough, but speed is key when you're on the road, y'know?"

Keter sighed. "I got him."

He lumbered over to the fallen Sefirot, pulling him up by the arm. Malkuth blinked, looking slightly disoriented as Keter guided him toward his assigned seat. Sensing that the drama was over, the other standing Sephirah returned to their places, throwing complaints at Malkuth as they walked past him.

Da'at didn't know what prompted her to move, but move she did—walking not to her seat, but to his. Malkuth blinked up at her, cradling his gun to his chest like it was a sort of comfort item, and not the weapon it was in reality.

"May I…" She licked her lips, feeling hesitant. "…sit next to you?"

Malkuth breathed in surprise, but nodded slowly. "Yeah, it's fine."

She sat down. An awkward silence passed.

Why did she decide to do this again?

"That place you mentioned…" She found herself murmuring. "Area 54. What is it?"

The boy exhaled sharply. "I'm not supposed to tell you. Tikkun and whatever this department is are exactly the kind of folks I'm not supposed to leak information to."

"Does that matter anymore? We're driving there as we speak."

"I know. It's just— I don't want to put you guys in a tough position." Malkuth frowned. "But this is an emergency, so maybe I can make something up for the General…"

He bit his thumbnail through his glove, debating the pros and cons of disclosing the secret he'd been beating around the bush about. The former must have outweighed the latter, because after a few seconds, he decided to finally come clean.

"Area 54 is the home base of USS SOCOM 9th Detachment-Juliet, or more commonly, Juliet Nine. They're a special counter-terrorism task force made to tackle threats suspected of involving supernatural influence, like hypnosis or out-of-context enemies. The US might be a new power compared to some of the older parts of the world, but it's a big place. Enemies could be hiding out anywhere, and we'd be chasing our own tails trying to find them."

Everyone on the bus was openly eavesdropping on their conversation, so Da'at wasn't surprised when they started to put in their own two cents.

"The supernatural's liberal use of magic does the States no favors," said Hod, gesturing with their tied-up hands. "Information tampering and memory alteration are fair game as long as they are used on the uninitiated—something that's becoming far more commonplace with the turn of the millennium."

"Welcome to half the reason our intelligence teams have headaches," Malkuth bemoaned. "The other half's the space-warping bullshit."

"Dimensional magic," Yesod corrected with a huff. She was sitting in Da'at's single seat. A fair trade, seeing as Da'at had taken her assigned chair.

"I thought the Church was the main jurisdiction in America?" asked Netzach, her green eyes contemplative and confused. "Are they insufficient?"

"Eehh… Juliet Nine kind of skirts around the robes a bit. They're pretty influential, but they're not keen on sharing, and their cageyness around the top dogs doesn't make them all that trustworthy. The entire cell was founded so that American powers could become the first responders to supernatural events, rather than leave everything to an ambiguously aligned religious organization."

"And if they succeed, the Americans won't have to show excessive favor to the Church." Shockingly, it was Geburah who made that observation. He seemed slightly amused. "I remember you guys now. Quite a few exorcists complain about you stealing their jobs up in the Vatican."

Malkuth and a few others snickered at the reveal. "That's one of the most flattering things I've ever heard. Thanks, Gebs."

Whatever amiability Geburah scrouged up died in an instant. "Call me 'Gebs' again. See what happens."

"Gebs," Malkuth pressed just to be a little shit. "Gebs. Gebs. Gebs. Gebs. Gebs."

Geburah grabbed his swords, and Da'at became rapidly aware of the fact that every Sephirah except her was immune to the consequences of homicide.

"Guys, we're getting derailed," Keter interrupted, earning a mental sob of gratitude from Da'at. "Area 54. What's going on there, Malkuth?"

The smirk on the 10th Sefirot's face vanished as he sobered up. "I don't know. Juliet Nine has a quarantine protocol for when anomalous substances mysteriously enter the base, but I've never seen it in action. According to the Commander, the facility will be put under lockdown so no one can leave or enter. First exposure victims are kept away from the rest of the staff alongside the anomaly, and have to document any findings until they either die or it's deemed 'safe' through outside monitoring."

"So, to get to the Golden Bough… We have to break into a secret military base under heavy lockdown?" Hokma asked, understandably skeptical.

"Well, I'm part of the anti-terrorist cell operating in said base, and I'm carrying vital information concerning the nature of the anomaly they're quarantining." Malkuth gave an easy shrug, belying the panic he displayed over that exact scenario not ten minutes before. "They'll let us in without a fuss."

A brief silence swept over the Sephirah. Almost everyone saw the big, obvious hole in that plan, but they didn't know how to address it without shattering Malkuth's genuine, if somewhat delusional, hope.

Hod did not share such reservations. "And what shall you do if they conclude the Golden Bough has taken you into its clutches due to the unfortunate timing of your disappearance and its appearance?"

Malkuth opened his mouth.

Then closed his mouth.

He thought it through a bit more.

"…Shit."

That did not inspire confidence.

"…To recap," Da'at said, trying to revive the momentum that had fallen sharply at Malkuth's curse. "Area 54 is the base of a counter-terrorism unit, and it's probably under lockdown due to the Golden Bough appearing there. Malkuth is worried about the more adverse effects the Golden Bough might exhibit, except…" She glanced at the boy beside her. "If they're as cautious as you say they are, they won't come into direct contact with it, right?"

"'Direct contact' is a bit of a misnomer, by the way," Alex said, turning the bus to the right. "The bough needs to touch the soul to start exhibiting its effects on a person, so unless one of those Juliet Nine guys feels like stabbing themselves with a neoplastic branch, they should be fine."

Sheepishness and disgust warred on Malkuth's face as he was reminded of his overreaction. He cringed into the velvet of his seat. "You couldn't have elaborated on that earlier?!" he cried.

"You didn't give me a chance to finish," Alex retorted.

"She's not wrong," Tiphereth muttered from behind them, causing Malkuth to duck his head into his hands and curl up into a ball.

"Shut uppppp," he whined.

Unsure of what to do, Da'at patted him consolingly on the back. She didn't know how much it helped, considering Malkuth was embarrassed out of his wits, but it didn't seem to make him any worse.

Keter coughed into his fist.

"So… what's our plan?" he asked, looking about as lost as Da'at felt.

On cue, everyone started brainstorming aloud.

"Maybe we can sneak in and do a snatch-and-grab," suggested Binah, eager to avoid confronting the soldiers capable of putting down supernatural threats. "Get in, find the bough, get out. Twenty-minute adventure. They won't even know we were there."

"If we still had our original strength, that plan might be worthy of consideration. I, myself, possess an array of skills that could have contributed to its success." Hod shrugged. "As we are now, though? We would be rats scurrying in the pipes, making a racket wherever we went."

"I hate to say it, but he is right," Netzach scoffed, repulsed at even agreeing with them. "Perhaps we should be more direct. I propose we stage a ransom. Malkuth is clearly connected with the inner sanctums of Juliet Nine. We could trade him for the bough, and he would be allowed to return home without threat of suspicion."

"Sure, because ransoming a hostage to a counter-terrorist organization is so smart," Hokma snarked.

"Why are all of your suggestions so extreme?" fretted Malkuth, who had gotten over his humiliation at the threat of a break-in.

Netzach's lips thinned. She put her palms together and bowed at the waist, her expression one of contrite silence. Doing that sitting down looked extremely uncomfortable.

"We should just fight our way through," spoke Geburah, sporting a grin that was way too eager for anyone's liking.

"This is America!" Binah squawked, "Are you itching to get shot?"

"According to the bus driver, we're still as strong as the dhampir over there." He jabbed a thumb at Chesed, who was blinking listlessly at the passing desert. "Most dhampirs can dodge bullets."

"That's not the ringing endorsement you think it is."

"Storming the base isn't out of the question, though," Keter contributed, glancing at Da'at's PDA. "The Identity I equipped was definitely stronger than my current self. Da'at managed to pull IDs for everyone, so if we use those, that should level the playing field against Juliet Nine."

Everyone's eyes landed on Da'at, recalling the test group's outlandish tales. While they were skeptical of its effectiveness, the Identity System was one of the only combat advantages they had outside of her revival mechanic. The biggest problem would be keeping Da'at out of the line of fire; something easily resolved by positioning her in the backlines.

Da'at, discomforted by their stares and Malkuth's rising alarm of the Sephirah, squirmed in her seat. "Well… We shouldn't discount a more diplomatic solution…" she said weakly.

"To do that, we'd have to convince Juliet Nine I'm not compromised." Malkuth shot a particularly nasty stink-eye in Alex's direction. "Which is kind of hard to do, seeing as my contract clauses make it seem like I am."

His jeering wasn't directed at her, but Da'at crumpled from shame all the same.

"At the very least, we have to ensure that Da'at survives," Hokma stated bluntly, "So long as she's alive and coherent, death isn't something we have to worry about."

"Does death not frighten you, Hokma?" Yesod inquired.

The youngest member of their department crossed his arms, trying to emulate the casual gruffness Geburah employed regularly. Unfortunately, it didn't work as well on a boy who barely came up to his seniors' chests. "I'm just stating the facts," he said.

Da'at wasn't fond of that fact, especially coming from someone so small. It made him seem… fragile. It made her feel heavy.

M

She shook her head before the hurt could sink its claws into her. "So, those are everyone's thoughts." Their peculiar and utterly unhinged thoughts. "Malkuth, what do you want to do?"

The boy blinked at her, flabbergasted out of his ire. "Me?" He pointed at himself.

"You're the most involved out of all of us. You have the greatest say in this decision."

As soon as she said the words, Da'at regretted them. They were cruel. She realized it the instant she saw his hands clench around his gun. All at once, she wanted to take them back—to apologize and take the lead like she should have done from the start.

But cowardice was a dark and insidious pest. Fear of failure, of doing something wrong and getting them all killed, made her push the burden of responsibility onto the person who shouldn't have to make that choice. Even now, even when she knew she had done something wrong, hesitation gripped her heart like a vice.

What was wrong with her?

Grappling with her fears, Da'at tried to find the will to speak.

And nearly flew out of her seat as Etz Hayim squealed to a sudden stop.

"Ow!" Yesod cried, hitting her head against the seat in front of her. "My calculations for a smooth journey fell short…"

"I'm beginning to think that this department is full of spontaneous drivers," Hod remarked blasély. "Do you suppose our Miss Supervisor is actually unlicensed?"

"Triple-licensed, actually!" Alex said, ignoring Binah's incredulous 'How?' "But that's besides the point. We have a problem."

The Sephirah raised their heads in sync. No one wanted to hear that.

Malkuth got out of his seat, forcing Da'at to follow suit. They and the rest of the Sephirah moved to the front of the bus, looking out the window to try to spot the problem in question.

"That…" Netzach gasped, eyes wide like the rest of them. "…is a massive understatement, Miss Alexandria."

"Because the place looks like it's under DEFCON 1."

Geburah's statement rang true. Surrounding two massive military warehouses was an encirclement of armored vehicles and soldiers armed to the teeth. The cars' mounted guns were trained on the warehouses, handled by men and women sweltering under the desert sun. Soldiers were patrolling an outer perimeter made of even more vehicles, running security so tight that the Sephirah doubted ants could get in. Again and again, they ran around the warehouses like clockwork, keeping their eyes peeled on the desert so their comrades could maintain their front against the warehouses.

They were watching. Waiting.

Steeled for disaster.

Malkuth stumbled backwards, bumping into Da'at's shoulder as he mumbled, "Oh, shit's fucked shit's fucked—"

Keter braced him by placing his hand against his back. "When you said the area would go into lockdown, I thought you meant an internal one."

"That's what our protocol says." Implying none of this was protocol. "Those BDUs aren't Juliet Nine. That's the U.S Army."

Tiphereth let out a distressed wheeze. "Are they here because of a contingency?"

"There's only one event where the army gets deployed like this." Malkuth frowned worriedly. "In case of emergencies, where… the possibility of a hazard breach is reported to the Department of Defense."

Hazard breach.

What an awful set of words that was.

Being the only person standing beside Malkuth instead of behind him, Da'at could see just how shaken he was about everything. Countless microexpressions flitted across his face in potentia, never coming into fruition as he grasped at loose straws. His imagination ran wild, embroiling him in dark insinuations and horrifying scenarios of what might be happening in the facility he clearly held dear to his heart. He couldn't find the way forward.

Then, as if struck by divine revelation, light returned to his eyes. Shifting in a manner that befitted someone taller than himself, he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

"Ms. Alex," he addressed the driver, who glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "We don't know what's happening down there, but I do know that the Golden Bough is the catalyst behind it all. There's this sense of… magnetism drawing me towards it. I didn't feel it until we got close, but it's super obvious now."

"What are you trying to say, Malkuth?" Alex prodded, lips lifted into a curious smile.

"I'm not saying anything. I'm asking you… If we remove the bough from the premises, will things go back to normal?"

Silence hung in the air. Everyone waited for Alex's answer with bated breath, hoping—for Malkuth's sake—that she could give him a reason to erase most of his fears.

"It'll keep its influence from spreading any further," was the only thing she could promise.

But that was good enough for Malkuth.

"Does Etz Hayim have an external speaker system?" At Alex's nod, he picked up the microphone, prompting her to start flipping switches on the radio. "This might be a little late, but… Da'at."

The manager snapped to attention. "Yes?"

He looked her dead in the eyes, his resolve gleaming with a clarity bordering on mania. He'd run into gunfire, into war, into hell itself, and drag his broken body forward like a loyal hound determined to return to its master. He would kill if he had to. He'd find joy in it if he had to. Such were the depths of his devotion to Juliet Nine.

"If they're in trouble, I have to save them," he stated. The extent of the danger and the ominous promise of tragedy had led him to this singular choice. "Are you with me?"

Her heart squeezed. He'd brave everything alone if they denied him, she realized.

"I am."

The sound of people picking up their weapons echoed through the cabin. Blades were sheathed, straps were tightened, and the atmosphere shifted into something sharp and menacing. Da'at held her PDA close to her ribs, muffling the ticks of her stuttering heart. She and Malkuth stood watch as two cars peeled off from the main bulk of the army, driving towards them at rapid speeds.

When they crossed an invisible boundary line, Malkuth raised the microphone to his lips. His voice rang out far and wide, reaching the approaching vehicles from a kilometer away.

"Attention! This is Captain Pi of Juliet Nine! This vehicle is not a threat! I repeat, we are not a threat! Get me your commanding officer, now!"

The cars stopped, confused by his claims. Malkuth put the microphone back and turned toward Alex.

"Now plow straight through 'em!"

Shock jolted a shriek out of Da'at. "What?!"

"I said DRIVE!"

Alex didn't need to be told thrice. She slammed her foot on the gas, accelerating Etz Hayim until it reached speeds comparable to a freight train. The military cars seemed to panic as the bus barreled towards them, rushing to get out of their way as the speed reader continued to climb up and up.

The outer perimeter spotted them. Orders and bullets flew through the air, the latter peppering their vehicle to no avail. It was like they were shooting at a moving fortress, unable to scratch even their windows as the active minefield failed to blow up their tires. Half the Sephirah were screaming, unprepared for Malkuth's insane plan or for Alex to follow through with it.

A lucky shot tapped the window near Da'at's head, causing her to flinch. Keter was at her side in an instant, holding her steady as the bus ramped up to over 100 miles per hour.

"You're crazy!" he shouted at Malkuth.

"A little bit, yeah!"

Clouds of dust billowed from Etz Hayim's wheels like comet trails, blinding anyone unfortunate enough to be in their immediate radius as Alex maneuvered the bus through the outer perimeter. Gunfire from the inner blockade rained down on them like sleet, and it might have been enough to pierce through. But in an act that defied several known laws of physics, Alex drifted into the barricade, smashing through several cars and barely missing the fleeing soldiers, to the absolute disbelief of the Sephirah.

"HOLY SHIT!" Binah screeched over Alex's witch-like cackling.

The bus swung like a pendulum, nearly doing a full revolution before breaking down the doors to the warehouse on the right. Beams and reinforced steel piled up on Etz Hayim's roof as the soldiers continued to fire, the concentrated volleys starting to crack the windows little by little.

"Alright, kids!" Alex addressed the heap of fallen Sephirah, who groaned and whined over their new bruises and cuts. "Off the bus! I'll pick you up after leading those folks on a wild goose chase."

The exit hissed open, free from the threat of gunfire thanks to Alex's strategic drifting. Da'at expedited the Sephirah's recovery, hissing as their wounds stung her skin.

"Malkuth?" Keter called out.

The boy was already alighting from the bus. "Yeah?"

"You're fucking insane."

For a moment, in a flicker of time so short it was evanescent, Malkuth's eyes glinted with soul-searing, gut-curdling…

Da'at didn't know.

"Yeah," the boy sighed. "Yeah."

He disembarked the bus, and the rest of the Sephirah hurried after him.

---

A/N: The thing about writing teenagers is that I can write them as teenagers. Aka, people who are almost grown, have varying levels of maturity and wisdom, but close to abysmal impulse control. These traits will be surprise tools that will help us later.

 

[Acht of Seven Tactics]

J9-54​

---

The warehouse was as barren as the wasteland surrounding it, devoid of objects to fill the shelves or vehicles to dock in the bay. The emptiness gave the place a slight acoustic effect, letting Da'at hear the echoes of the Sephirah's footsteps as they chased after their only lead.

"I must admit you've surprised me, Malkuth," said Hod. Their rapier swung from their hip, and though it remained sheathed, Da'at couldn't help but send it nervous glances now that their hands were unbound. "Such an extreme plan seems out of character for you."

"Moderation went out the window once I saw how high up shit creek things were," Malkuth asserted, sprinting full-tilt to the back end of the warehouse. "Right now, I need to find out what happened to Juliet Nine and retrieve the Golden Bough. Everything else comes after."

"You are not afraid of being court martialed?" Netzach asked, stupefied.

"As long as they're alright, I don't give a fuck."

Netzach stumbled a little, taken aback at his callousness. But Malkuth marched onward, wholly consumed by protective desire. He led them to the center of the warehouse, where a metal hatch out of a sci-fi film lay across the floor. Malkuth kneeled next to it, pushing a triangular green button that opened up a compartment with a hand scanner.

"Area 54 is currently under lockdown. Please wait for verification code EA-392—"

"Override code: Pi. 39104-98592-MW. 'Shut the fuck up, I'm alive.'"

"Please verify your identity."

Malkuth started to remove his glove, but before he could finish, a loud crack rang out through the warehouse. Da'at looked to her right, at where Netzach was standing, and found her slumped on the floor, blood spilling out of the exit wound on her back.

Geburah and Binah reacted first.

"SNIPER!" / "GET COVER!"

Keter pulled Da'at behind him, raising his box gun as a makeshift shield against the hail of bullets flying their way. The soldiers had breached the warehouse from the backside, rushing into the shelves to try and flank them while their gun turrets pressured them into hiding. Most of the Sephirah only got nicked, but Tiphereth got torn to shreds, painting the floor a new shade of red.

The Sephirah huddled behind the shelves, the less experienced of them flinching at the outpour of gunfire. Hokma shook in Chesed's arms, thrown alongside her to safety by the now deceased Tiphereth. Binah and Geburah eyed their flanks, the former cursing up a storm as the latter drew his swords. Standing over her protectively, Keter fiddled with his weapon, trying to slide one of the guns out of its holster.

Shots rang in Da'at's ears, climbing to a crescendo as waves of panic washed over her. How were they supposed to fight this?!

Then gunshots, closer to their side, echoed above the din.

Glancing out from the cover of the shelves, Malkuth retaliated with pinpoint accuracy. He gleaned the positions of the firing squad before peeking his gun out of cover to fire at them blindly. Three round bursts pinged off the armored cars they used as cover, but his returning fire made them more cautious. The foot soldiers paused, leaving the turrets to pick up the slack.

Da'at was horrified. Now, more than ever, Malkuth looked like a man possessed. The interrogation, the charge, the sprint—all of it paled to the muzzle flash dancing in his eyes like a roaring flame.

The tip of a rapier tapped her shin.

"Manager," addressed Hod, looking faintly unimpressed at her breakdown. "Clear your head. Assess the situation before we all die here."

Da'at flinched. Though their chastising hurt, the shock to her brain helped her get a grip on her turbulent emotions. She wadded them up tightly, stuffing them into a proverbial box as she forced herself to look around and think.

'We need to get into Area 54. Malkuth can't open the hatch with all the shooting, so we have to take care of that somehow. Soldiers are flanking us. I saw them break away to the sides before they started firing. Only Malkuth and Keter have ranged weapons, and Keter doesn't know how to use his. If only we had more—'

Da'at's eyes snapped towards her PDA.

"Spark an idea?" Hod asked mockingly as she fumbled for the On button, sighing in relief when it opened on the Team interface.

"I do." She tapped the IDs of the available Sephirah one by one. "Brace yourself."

Hod furrowed their brow, but before they could say anything, they refracted and changed. Now they wore a red and white uniform, exuding an air of dignity as they wielded a sword and a floating discus forged in the shape of stars.

Da'at watched with bated breath as they blinked, their Identity's mind synchronizing instantly with their base self. "What a perilous situation we've found ourselves in. Shall we take to the field, Knight Deputy?"

"You must have me mistaken for someone else," said the returned butler version of Keter. "Regardless, any aid in protecting my master is appreciated."

"EVERYONE!" Da'at screamed over the gunfire, which nearly drowned out her voice despite its volume. "START THE COUNTERATTACK!"

While the manager didn't know the first thing about tactics, her words still served to push the Sephirah into action. Hod, Yesod, Geburah, Malkuth, and Chesed split off from the group, sprinting into the maze of shelves to subdue the flanking detachment. Meanwhile, Keter, Hokma, and Binah peeked out from their covers, the former two laying down return fire as Binah vanished to parts unknown.

Da'at sat there stupefied as Hokma summoned a small army of animals from his shadow, each of them carrying guns in their impossibly tiny claws. With a click of his tongue, the animals clambered into the shelves, using their natural climbing abilities to get closer to the firing line.

Though they were easily missable, some of the soldiers still spotted them. Their incredulous shouts carried high above the clamor.

"Is that a fucking squirrel—" BANG!

Keter was no slouch either. When the animals began their retaliation, he took advantage of the brief opening to combine his pistols into a long sniper rifle, dashing out and firing with abnormally precise aim. Someone gasped as Keter's bullets hit their mark, debilitating blows that echoed long after the butler made it safely to the other shelf.

"Apprentice Butler," Keter greeted Hokma cordially.

Hokma rolled his eyes at Keter, but unlike his normal self, his face lightened somewhat at the older boy's acknowledgement.

"I can't believe we're fighting the military again," he grumbled, summoning more firearm-wielding animals from his shadow.

Keter chuckled. "It is a butler's creed to enter the depths of hell for their chosen master if need be. Do remember to keep your more acidic thoughts to yourself—at least while you're enacting our services, Hokma."

Hokma opened his mouth to retort, but the resinous scent of wood stopped him short. "Where's Binah?" he asked, finally noticing her long absence.

Keter gestured at the breached door.

Like a flash of lightning, Binah appeared in front of the soldiers, glaring at them like the demon out of hell she was. She stomped on the ground, trees erupting from the earth to weave into a thick wall preventing the army from entering the warehouse. Muffled shouts could be heard through the gaps in the trunks, but even the renewed gunfire felt distant behind the blockade of wood.

Binah dashed back to the center of the warehouse, nearly skidding against the remains of Netzach and Tiphereth as she gave Da'at a thumbs-up.

"Sorry for the wait," she apologized first, "I doubled back to seal up that big hole Alex made in the warehouse. Didn't want us to get blasted from behind."

Da'at felt that she should have prioritized the breach they were being shot through, but then remembered how Etz Hayim's windows had started to crack as they were leaving. Although the bus was built like a tank, it had its limits—and Da'at didn't fancy the thought of the army ramming it out of the way to get to them.

"I understand," said the manager, trying to calm her knocking knees. "Thank you for your quick action."

Binah smiled, shooting her a peace sign.

"It seems that we've each accomplished our tasks." Geburah rejoined the group, his neatly ironed butler uniform as spick and span as ever. One might think he didn't fight at all, but the smell of burnt gunpowder clinging to his shotgun spoke otherwise. "All enemies have been eliminated. You are safe now, Master."

Da'at ducked her head. Something about the way Geburah called her 'master' compared to Keter made it feel ten times more uncomfortable. Maybe it was the uncanniness of it—the combative Geburah she knew would never in a million years speak to her so softly.

She threw out a question to distract herself from these chaotic emotions. "Where are the others?"

"Chesed and Malkuth followed me, but Chesed disappeared before we made contact with the enemy. Malkuth stayed behind to restrain the soldiers, so he should be joining us soon," Geburah explained. "As for Hod and Yesod…"

"Here, Captain."

Da'at whirled around, her breath hitching when she saw Hod carrying Yesod over his shoulder. He unceremoniously dropped the girl like a sack of potatoes, giving Da'at a full view of the bullet holes covering her chest.

"She said she needed to calculate the trajectory of the bullets. I say she got sloppy," Hod said, casting an amused look at the girl dying at their feet. "Next time, try not to think in circles when you're chasing down a clock."

"But- most clocks are typically circular…" Yesod rasped.

"Are those really your last words?"

Yesod didn't reply. Those had, in fact, been her last words.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing you guys die," Binah remarked, her frivolous tone doing nothing to hide the intense stare she aimed at Yesod.

"No one wants to," said Hokma, as the Sephirah shed their IDs one by one. "A-at least we have a way to come back."

He reverted to his normal self mid-sentence, causing him to stutter and tremble. He glanced at the shelves, blood draining from his face as he searched for the injured soldiers he knew were littered in the aisles between them. He pressed a hand to his mouth, looking sick to his stomach. Binah quickly crouched in front of him, mumbling something Da'at couldn't hear as she ushered him out of view.

Hod sighed dispassionately at the boy's frailty. "Indeed. Speaking of which, Miss Manager, please bring the dead back post haste. I don't wish to dawdle in this wretched hovel any longer than necessary."

"And I wish we had a way to gag you permanently, but we don't always get what we want," Keter muttered at them before placing a hand on Da'at's shoulder. "Will you be alright?"

Da'at nodded, not trusting her voice to stay stable. Glancing between the cooling corpse of Yesod and the hole-riddled remains of Netzach and Tiphereth, she gulped and clenched her wrist. She hadn't needed to revive anyone since the sanctum, but the mere prospect of having to do it again caused her to shake uncontrollably.

Still, she couldn't leave them like this.

So she accelerated her heartbeat.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Several burning sensations hit her all at once, spreading through her nerves like wildfire as bullet casings flew out of the Sephirah's bodies. Their eyes snapped open, awareness returning to them as Da'at collapsed into Keter's arms, shaking from the strain of three people's agony.

"I was shot…?" asked Netzach, her exposed eye darkening when she realized she was the first casualty of the battle. "How humiliating. Forgive me, Manager. I shall submit myself to punishment once this mission is over."

Tiphereth rubbed his throat, feeling his flesh knit back together as he furtively glanced between Da'at and Hokma. It seemed like he wanted to do something for them, only to jump to his feet in a last-minute swerve, hurriedly fleeing from the spotlight.

Yesod rose from the dead with enthusiasm, bouncing to her feet in a show of disquieting adaptability. She hopped across the center path, speaking quickly yet clearly at anyone who might listen. Her raving was so attention-grabbing that Da'at almost missed the reappearance of Chesed, her hammer hanging loosely in her hand. The dhampir paused at the sight of Tiphereth, a spark of something glinting in her eyes, but it soon vanished, and she returned to her zombie-like state.

Da'at was still shaking when she spotted Malkuth out of the corner of her eye. He had returned with Chesed and was staring blankly at the hatch, subdued for the first time since their conversation on the bus. She could see him glancing at the wall of trees sealing the breach, the bullet-made grooves nicked across the floor, and the identification system looping its last, robotic request.

"Please verify your identity."

He reloaded his gun.

"Malkuth." Geburah approached him, frowning coldly at his dazed state. "Get moving."

A strange dissonance lurked behind Malkuth's eyes, regret and defiance tinged with wide-eyed indecision. "Geburah?"

"Fighting our way in might have been my idea, but you're the one who decided to bum-rush into it. So quit acting dumb, Malkuth. Your— We don't have time for you to get your shit together."

Though low, his voice peaked with anger, spitting out the last sentence as if it were acid on his tongue. Yet Da'at caught his stutter, how he nearly said one thing before replacing it with another. And judging by Malkuth's sharp gaze, he heard it, too.

"Fine," the dark-eyed boy replied.

Taking off his glove, he placed his palm down on the hand scanner, which beeped approvingly and said, "Fingerprint match found. Verification complete. Security Clearance: Level 4."

The hatch slid open to an underground shaft, where a lift was slowly rising to meet them.

"Welcome back, Captain Wong."

---

As soon as they got on board, the lift began its slow descent into the earth, giving them time to collect their bearings. Hokma and Binah sat against the railing, the former stewing in silence with the latter accompanying him while he brooded. Netzach had convinced Yesod to quiet down, reprimanding her in a low tone about being more attentive to her surroundings. Geburah lingered around Tiphereth and Chesed, who leaned onto each other listlessly like statues in an art museum. Hod gazed into the darkness, humming an odd tune to themself every time they passed by a red light.

While most of the Sephirah idled the ride away, Da'at was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

She felt very silly about it, especially since no one else seemed as flustered as she was. But she couldn't help but think that the firefight had been their final warning. They had rammed through the barricade, a barrier made to keep something in, and were now riding down an express shaft to hell with no way out.

Though perhaps it was fitting, considering what they did to get here…

"Hey." Keter's worried voice snapped Da'at out of her daze. Except, unlike other times, his concern wasn't directed towards her—but at Malkuth. "You're shaking."

She glanced at the 10th Sefirot, struggling to make out his outline in the patchy light. His eyes, back, and shoulders were practically tempered steel, conveying nothing but rigid discipline. But his gun, grasped tightly in his hands, shook minutely even as he kept his eyes forward. At Keter's observation, he looked downward and bit his lip. With a strength of mind unknown to her, he forced the tremors to stop, controlling his bodily reactions until he was as still as could be.

Da'at shuddered, silently intimidated. In the short time they'd known each other, Malkuth demonstrated a pure force of will that demolished even hesitation, driving him forward like an unstoppable machine. However, it was that same will that spurred him to kill people he had admitted to being aligned with. When cars barred the way to the warehouses, he immediately resorted to force. When soldiers delayed them with gunfire, he was the first to retaliate. It didn't matter that they were his people, his comrades, his fellows-in-arms—they were between him and Juliet Nine. And once it became clear that the latter was in danger, he trampled over the obstacles between him and them with single-minded disdain.

Except no, she realized with a jolt. It wasn't disdain that marred his face in the heat of conflict. It was panic.

The depths of his resolve frightened her, but it wasn't indefatigable. She had seen him wrench himself out of its all-consuming force, looking dazed and confused like he couldn't process what he'd just done. He slipped back into the fervor so easily that she forgot how he was after that first bout; sitting in his seat, anxiously fiddling with his gun like he'd fall apart if he didn't keep his hands busy.

What did all of this add up to? Da'at didn't know. But when she recalled how quickly he stilled his hands, the burgeoning fear she felt towards him softened.

"We'll retrieve the Golden Bough," she said in a clumsy attempt at comfort.

Malkuth blinked at her, curious as a dog and just as baffled. She stared into his dark eyes, willing sympathy to show in her own even as she puzzled over the intricacies of how the emotion actually felt. They held eye contact for another three seconds until she saw something tightly wound inside of Malkuth begin to relax.

He smiled as a flash of red embraced him—

---

I watched as the car pulled out of the driveway.

The couple were nice enough. The husband had been outgoing, adventurous, and knew a lot of jokes. The wife was more passive, but her face lit up every time her partner did something ridiculous. They spoke to me as if I mattered. Like, I was worth it. Like they wanted to care.

But they were pulling out of the driveway.

The matron's hand gripped my shoulder tightly, the pain of her nails digging into my skin disabusing me of the idea that this was a comforting act. Despite the crescent indents forming on my shoulder, I looked down, staring at my ratty red sneakers as they scuffed the cracked steps of the orphanage.

"I don't think they were very impressed with you."

The matron's light remark stung more than I expected, like taking a knife to the chest when I braced myself for a kick. The factual tone of it, and her tightening grip that betrayed her true thoughts, slid between my ribs, carving out a piece of my lungs and leaving me breathless. Speechless.

She spotted the moment of weakness. And like a seasoned predator, she pounced on it.

"What did you do wrong this time?" she asked, needling me for answers I didn't have. "You cleaned up well enough. You gave them the lines I told you to practice. So, how did you manage to fumble that interview?"

She smiled at me, exposing her teeth to try to make me squirm more. But I didn't know. I followed her instructions to the letter. I played the part of a bright-eyed young man who had a whole future ahead of him, unable to achieve his full potential due to unfortunate circumstances. I played for laughs, for awe, for sympathy. I pasted feathers on my arms and squawked like a dying bird, spinning a yarn of how they'd be heroes if they picked me up and raised me.

…Maybe that's why.

"I think…" I hesitated, scuffing the cracks harder as the matron bore down on me like an interrogator. "I think I wasn't the type of kid they were looking for."

Her death grip eased up a little, and I released a quiet sigh of relief. She never let me go, but the amusement in her eyes told me that she was done (physically) squeezing me for answers. "Oh? And what kind of kid were they looking for?"

Maybe they wanted the kid who used to get straight As in middle school. The kid who laughed when he practiced for the cheerleading team. Perhaps they wanted the kid who came home from school to hear the news of his parents' deaths. The kid whose relatives tossed him out like yesterday's trash. The kid who tried to soften up his rough edges and turn his sobs into blinding smiles.

Maybe they wanted a real kid. An honest kid. Someone who wasn't a wreck trying to pretend their way into their good graces.

I didn't say any of that.

"A younger kid, maybe?" I said instead, throwing out one of the most bog-standard reasons I could think of. "A lot of people see adopting a teenager as bringing in a short-term freeloader. Younger kids have the advantage of being cute, at least."

She drummed her fingers across my shoulder, counting down every precious shred of patience. "You should have been adopted ages ago," she said.

Because she didn't want me. From the very first second I walked through her doors, she wanted me gone.

"I'll do better next time," I promised, even though I'd been doing nothing but my best.

I repressed the urge to shiver as she dragged her nails up my neck, scratching my scalp with her pointy red manicure. She tilted my head left and right, twisting it around like she was trying to pop it off my neck.

"There's no place for you here," she whispered, "You're taking up too much space and food. No wonder your relatives didn't want you. You're the greediest, most ungrateful freak I've ever known."

I reeled from the acid in her tone, and she let me go. Her scratchy, bristling presence vanished into the orphanage, where I had no doubt she'd be taking out her frustrations on some of the other teens living in this pit. Subconsciously, I looked out to where the car rounded the bend, wondering if I could run after it. To beg the couple to take me with them, or at least give me a ride.

I even have a destination in mind: The cemetery where my parents are buried. I haven't seen them since the morning they died.

I know it's not going to happen. My uncle said that they shipped my Dad's ashes back to their mother in Korea, and my Mom was given an unceremonious cubby in a columbarium I never got the number of. But sometimes I imagined what it'd be like to visit their graves, to talk to them and ask them for guidance.

It must be nice.

I sat there on the steps, watching the world around me go by. I thought about the couple, my relatives, the matron, and my parents.

And I wondered what was wrong with me, that so many good people would rather walk away than have anything to do with me at all.

---

Da'at startled awake, wrenched out of the vision as abruptly as when she entered it. It was engraved in her mind, filling the barren space with memories of picture-perfect clarity. The matron's spine-chilling touch. The odorous smell of the city. The suffocating spiral of grief and shame, and the haunting loneliness of knowing no one in the world wanted you.

'What was that?' Da'at clutched her head, blinking away the ghosts of a younger Malkuth and a patronizing matron. 'Was that just my imagination… or a piece of Malkuth's past?'

It had to be the latter. There were too many alien concepts involved for it to be the result of stressed-out daydreaming. But why was she seeing an excerpt of his past?

Malkuth leaned in closer to examine her, his smile traded in for concern. "Something wrong, Da'at?"

The manager hesitated to reply. What was she supposed to say? "Hey, I suddenly had a flashback to your past. I'm sorry for invading your privacy? Everything she saw felt extremely personal, and she wasn't sure how to disclose it to him without treading on his toes.

Should she just be honest?

Before she could make a decision, the lift rumbled and slowed to a crawl. They had reached the bottom of the shaft. Heavy metal doors were the only things left between them and Area 54's secret base.

Without anyone's prompting, most of the Sephirah took up their weapons, with the less experienced among them quickly following their example.

Da'at clutched her PDA like a lifeline, gnawing on her lips as the doors hissed open.

White light flooded her retinas.

"Let's move out," Malkuth said.

---

A/N: First combat scenario, go! The kids only have one ID each right now, and none of them know about E.G.O, but they'll figure it out eventually. At least they mesh well (somehow). And let's go, Tragic Backstory Fathom Flashbacks!

As a sidenote, I'll be revealing the specifics of each ID and their Base E.G.Os once Canto I is finished~

Edit: For the record, the Sephirah chose to go non-lethal. Mostly because this isn't the City and thus insta-murder is not each ID's first option.