Chapter 469: Sacrifice

Number 3 froze at the boy's last reveal. She couldn't properly react… no, she couldn't process or register the meaning behind Aiden's words. 

Did she evolve? H-how? What did that really mean?

Number 3 slowly turned away, looking at her arms, her hands, her body once again, looking for something, anything that she could lean on. Any hint, that could serve as support and assist her already befuddled, scrambled, chaotic state of mind.

Yet, no matter where she looked, how she looked, besides the crystal core humming inside her chest, pulsing and continuously, rhythmically releasing a surge of this new source of energy, nothing was amiss. Other than having an additional solid, hard-shelled organ working inside her body, fitting perfectly in place, she seemed normal. 

Well, truth be told, she did notice that her youthfulness has seemingly returned, feeling like how she was in her early teenage years in terms of vitality, but she could count that as a side effect of her emergence of that black egg-like object. 

Evolution? Did she really evolve? She just couldn't accept such a thing. Something like that was completely, utterly, biologically impossible for a human such as her to achieve. But then, what happened? Why does she feel the same, yet so different, so 'alien' in her own body at the same time?

Still, despite she really wanted to, she couldn't refute the boy's claims. She did feel that something was amiss, something was not right, she just couldn't accept the reality Aiden had painted.

In the end, she sighed, focusing on her own memories instead. She tried going back in time, recalling the events leading before her recent awakening. Yet, just like previously,  as she focused her mind, and tried to remember, she found that there was a huge chunk that was lost to her. Like a video, these visions, images were corrupted, dark, containing no visual information, or sound.

The only thing that she could sense, was some emotions that were pushed to the back of her heart, weighing heavily down on her. Feelings of sadness and sorrow, lingering despair of losing something, or… someone important to her, were the most dominant, most powerful sensations that she kept away.

Whenever she gleaned into this pool, this reserve, she had the urge to cry, to lash out on the world. Yet, she couldn't understand why she was feeling anything like that. 

"I…" Seeing that she wouldn't get ahead by herself, Number 3 decided to speak up. Still, she felt it incredibly difficult to explain any of what she was experiencing. "I can't recall anything, other than this overwhelming sadness, this grief… I can't really explain it, I feel a lot at the same time. I am… scared? Angry? Sad? Maybe all of that at the same time…" 

She looked at her little boy with a bitter look, feeling weird at the strange reversal of their roles. Unlike in the past, now it was her that was lost and confused and needed guidance, hoping to get it from the person in front of her. 

"I see…" Aiden nodded thoughtfully. "And you can't remember anything at all? What is the last thing you remember before today?" He asked after a bit of silence.

Trying her hardest, Number 3 closed her eyes, focusing on her mind. She inhaled, taking in a lungful of air, before repeating the same breathing exercise that Aiden usually did: Keeping it inside for a few, brief seconds, before slowly, gradually exchanging what she used up with the fresh, new oxygen from the outside, whilst clearing her mind from all the distraction.

After a few repeats, her shoulders eased up, her body relaxed. The turmoils of the outside world calmed down, became irrelevant as she began her descent to the depths of her own mind.

Images of the day roughly 2 weeks ago soon appeared on her mind. She slowly recalled her morning, continuing her dream-like journey flipping through the events of that day at a fast, swift pace. 

She could recall her meeting with the other executors, her assignment given directly by the Reaper, The Grandmaster's Right Hand… 

She frowned, feeling the gradual loss of her recollection just after she felt a sudden surge of an invisible current ripple through the city. 

Energy, a power…

Suddenly, the realization hit her, her eyes snapped wide open looking at the youngster in front of her. With quivering lips, the only word she managed to force out was:

"You…" She pointed at Aiden, taking a moment to repeat what she just said. "You!"

Aiden didn't respond, he retained his calm, collected smile as he met his Master's gaze. Through their shared connection, he could feel the gradual shift in her mental state. He understood that she finally remembered something important. She could finally connect all the stray emotions still weighing on her with a clue.

"It was you! The last thing… You were in trouble…" Raising her hands, she looked at her open palms, as she exercised her fingers, trying to get a feel for the underlying, brimming power, finally feeling a vague familiarity to it.

"This… power…" She muttered, focused on her own self as she went on. "This power is the same… what I felt back then…"

Raising her head, she looked at Aiden, with a concerned, worried expression. This time, however, a newfound clarity, understanding also glimmered in her eyes as she sized up the boy. 

"What happened back then? Why were you so… in pain?"

—

With her regained memories, -even if it was still fragmented and missing most of it, gave Aiden a comfortable starting point to begin his recount of the events.

Since she did not mention anything about the interrogation at all, nor about the imminent invasion, Aiden decided to keep those bits deliberately vague, focusing more on the fact that once he was out and heading back towards the tavern to regroup with his friends, he noticed that he was being followed.

He then went on and recounted the entirety of the events in detail, whilst also skipping over the exact peculiarities. At least for now, he still wanted to make sure that her allegiance would now be with him, and their family and her connection with the Grandmaster and the Organization was a thing of the past.

In the end, he told the half-truth that he could gain power with a technique he can't talk about that relied on ingesting the most precious organ of the defeated, in the case of humans, their heart, whilst in most of the other ones, their cores.

He then went on to describe what followed: Him losing control of the sudden surge of newly gained power, and was on the brink of losing himself when she arrived at the scene and used her body to transfer the overflow and ultimately save his life at the cost of her own.

Her sacrifice, caused Number 3 to look at the boy once more with an incredulous expression. She knew she was deeply attached to the boy, probably way more than she should have in the past, but she didn't know that she would go as far as willingly throwing herself in front of the danger so recklessly. 

"Through your selfless action, through your love is why I can be in front of you today, Master. What you did, I will forever carry within my heart."

---

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