Hullbreaker

The Virgo District's mining and sorting factory was an abandoned establishment that once held hundreds of human and alien workers alike. The Virgo Factory was specifically used to generate fuel cells for vehicles, mine ore crystals for weather power plants, and seek wealth. This particular factory was once home to the stubborn miners that dedicated their lives to perfecting the crystals that powered the weather plants, but they absconded from their jobs, yearned for treasure, and sought endlessly for fortune.

Sadly, most abandoned mines had workers who shared the same dark fate, thirsting for wealth amid the paradisal landscape. These low-class individuals had no future ahead of them except the road that led to an unknown treasure dreamed of at the end of a shallow and distant rainbow. They fought endlessly to secure something that may or may not have existed, which resulted in an endless lack of will to continue mining.

The result of their endless labor was the creation of the Hullbreaker Tunnels, an elongated set of manmade dripstone tunnels oozing with mist and dew. It was created deep inside the Virgo Factory and led to a set of unknown islands housing a ship graveyard filled with treasure. The factory's shores were an abandoned set of man-made tunnels riddled with junk and litter soaked in grime that consumers flushed down into their oceans. The miners sought the fruits of the labor to be rewarded but fought against each other until none remained standing. The treasure remained, and so did the signal from the V2 nanosuit. And eventually, these miners transformed into bandits and plunderers attempting to cash in their ore by illegally trading with other illicit buyers.

About a block away, Ryo and Natia settled down inside one of the many Sunlight transport vans that served as an equipment hub for case preparation. Ryo had made sufficient time to recover from Rose Accel's attack and made ample time to prepare for the upcoming investigation at the Hullbreaker Tunnels. Within the truck, sufficient recon and combat equipment were provided: an assortment of combat close-ranged and long-ranged cybernetic metallic weapons, scanners that transmitted and traced signals, and recon technology to provide aerial assistance via hacking.

"Just pick a damn weapon already," Natia said, suiting up with her jet black nanosuit. She spun a pair of uniquely shaped daggers with her finger through a large ring located near the hilt. She watched as Ryo scanned his eyes through the weapon varieties, choosing between a neon electric green-trimmed short sword, a prototype sturdy hammer, and a gold-trimmed tomahawk. "Or are you still daydreaming about that girl?"

"I'm not," Ryo annoyingly said while picking the tomahawk; it was true that he had not been thinking about April, as his nervousness for the case was overwhelming him. The weapon's grip was cushiony, leading to a satisfying hold as the weight of the blade felt balanced. He swung the tomahawk twice to test it. "My life doesn't depend on her. Or are you going to keep talking about her like some jealous first-grader?"

Natia slammed her hand against an orange button, opening the Sunlight transport van. The force of the blow was so powerful that it nearly shattered the button and its functionality while making a colliding sound that resembled tin striking metal. "Don't be ridiculous," Natia muttered. "Being jealous over a Nakai? That makes me vomit. Don't get your hopes up, you virgin."

"Whatever," Ryo said, stepping outside of the transport van after Natia. The unsettling mist from the Hullbreaker Tunnels fogged up the afternoon's mellow and crisp sunset vista, sending shivers down Ryo's spine over the unknown. The Virgo Factory was a rusty towering building with man-made wooden elevator structures and windmills decked across its architecture. It blocked the afternoon sun from blasting Ryo and Natia with its tense heat. While the facility was not guarded against the outskirts due to its increasing hostility and underground community, Ryo still shuddered in fear knowing that an entire set of underground money dwellers and homeless miners roamed the vicinity.

Natia stepped forward near the crumbled road's edge, placing the evidence that Naoto gathered into a signal tracer. Several numbers appeared on a touchscreen attached to the tracer, indicating the distance from Melody's transmission. She waved it up and down once to determine the strength of the signal's direction, noticing that it lowered to its precise destination when she waved it downward.

Placing his hand on an earpiece attached to his nanosuit, he patched a signal through Nana, who provided reconnaissance and information to assist his first case. "Hey, Nana. What does everything look like from base?"

"Nana has scanned across the factory and found no signs of life anywhere on the surface level!" The cheerful monkey's voice rang through. "Nana thinks the two of you should go lower so the signal can be stronger."

"All right. What's the plan?" Ryo asked Nana and Natia, activating his nanosuit to clothe his body in its armor.

"Go in, find the signal, kill whatever we see," Natia commanded as she finished calibrating the signal tracer. "That's it."

"Wait, kill?" Ryo asked. "We don't have to do that. We can find another way around that." The idea of murdering innocent lives was something that Ryo detested after watching it unfold a myriad of times in the past. The ruthless Japanese and Chinese triads that created gang communities around Hokkaido and Osaka enjoyed murder bubbling from traitorous dishonesty and cheap thrill.

Knowing that he had almost caused a murder himself when he was in Seiya Elementary, Ryo was passive against the thought of getting his hands dirty.

"What, and you expect these thirsty no-lifers to let us walk in peace?" Natia asked. "These people are worthless. They'll try to kill us and strip our armor to pawn it off for a couple of cents. They threw their lives away decades ago. Don't show them mercy, or you'll die for it. But… maybe it'll be fine in this case, considering how useless and sympathetic you are for a couple of half-wits."

"That has nothing to do with it," Ryo clarified. "The last thing we'd want is to spill unnecessary blood. You don't know how it is down there."

"What I do know is that you're pathetic," Natia said, preparing to leap down to the crusty desert rocks underneath the road's rail. "You do you. Just don't get in my way." Natia finished, jumping off the railway.

Ryo sighed, believing that no word that he spoke could drill through her mind. He was getting extremely tired of dealing with Natia's hostility and missed his ally's cheerful optimism and attitude. After sticking with Natia for so long, Ryo already wanted a break. Yet, for the sake of the case and the significance of the nanosuits, Ryo continued with the plan and leaped down with her.

The dry rocky terrain almost acted like sharp spikes to the sight, but after touching their feet down upon them, they crumbled down like piles of sand. Ryo followed Natia towards the entrance of the factory, which was a bronze rusting arch discolored from the dryness of the encompassing area. As Natia trod closer to the entrance, the musty and corpse-like scent of dead bodies and rummaging insects forced her to equip her nanosuit's helmet visor to block it out. Her face shriveled up in absolute disgust over her surroundings. Cockroaches and horseflies circulated scraps of rotten food from leftover cans desperately seeking anything to satisfy their hunger. Ryo followed Natia through the bronze arch and came into contact with a rusty pried open door made of the same material.

The pungent and bitter tinge of rust and oxidized iron scents emanating from old metal and bronze pipes even made Ryo equip his helmet visor to filter out its smell. Scatters of litter and other items such as used cigarettes, alcohol bottles, glass shards, and slabs of bronze metal were riddled across the sulfur burned ground. Natia took the lead and used the signal tracer, pointing it near one of the rusty floors after detecting a closer trace.

"Did you find it?" Ryo whispered. His voice had a mechanical filter coming from his nanosuit's helmet visor.

"What does it look like? Shut up," Natia disregarded, following the pathway through the littered floors. Unnatural fiery fogs and steam arose from machines pounding on coal, which slightly startled Natia from its sudden exuberant discharges. The bitter heat surged through the two's armored faces as they passed two active metal machinery pounding ore together to form fuel. "What the hell are they using this stuff for?"

"I don't know. Maybe they're melting and deconstructing the things they've mined to see if they hit the jackpot," Ryo said. "Let's move further down to see if we can find the path to the mine."

"Nana reads that these people were once members of a mining working class," Nana informed.

"While they were not exactly known for being wealthy from their endeavors, their efforts nonetheless symbolize and mark the creation of the Hullbreaker Tunnels."

Natia scoffed and she noticed a darkened and damp area of moss growing on nearby rocks and oxidized iron. "If some fucker jumps out and tries to scare me, I'm killing them on the spot." She threatened.

"Let me lead then," Ryo said, stepping in front of Natia. "Now you won't have to kill anyone."

"Cocky bastard." Natia insulted, following him across the mossy path. Their footsteps were barely audible to the iron girders underneath them with the scorching lava and magma tossed across the factory's insides. Ryo couldn't help but notice how terrifyingly rancid and bitter the factory's environment was compared to the rest of Aries's marvelous sights. Compared to Asahikawa, he guessed that despite having such a paradisal environment, another side of the continent would be struck with some kind of sacrificial poverty to ensure no one was the same.

They stopped near an open squared hole after ascending a flight of rusty stairs. A half-set ladder led down to the unknown, prompting Ryo to take point and kick down the ladder to extend it all the way.

"Nana, what do you see?" Ryo asked, peeking down the ladder with a flashlight attached to his nanosuit. Dust particles began colliding to dew drops from the watery tunnels, shining from the light that Ryo emitted. Barely any sliver of light could be seen from their position with the darkness of the factory enveloping their surroundings.

"Nana sees nothing yet. It seems the signal is much too weak. You will have to enter. Take precaution, please!" Nana cautioned.

Natia scoffed, stepping forward and activating her flashlight. "Let me go first," She commanded. "If you see anything moving down with me, you come down and you kill it."

"No promises," Ryo replied.

The two of them descended the ladder. Their metallic hands covered by the nanosuit's armor could feel the stickiness of the ladder's dew among their palms and fingertips as they descended. As Natia continued moving, the vibrating sound of a creak cautioned her senses to stop moving. Ryo watched as Natia hesitated to move any further.

"You good?" Ryo asked.

"Shut up. I'm fine," Natia disregarded. However, Ryo could sense her presence stirring in response to the abhorrent fear of the dark unknown. Her skin was shuddering and her heart pounded endlessly as the atmosphere's pressure began lowering. Even if she was wearing a skin-tight nanosuit, she imagined the wetness and humid nature of the air coating her skin in a ghastly wettened aura.

"Fuck. Fuck! Okay, I can't do this. I can't," Natia denied. "Climb back up. Switch with me."

"What are you talking about?" Ryo asked, appearing startled at her vulnerable statement. "I thought you weren't scared? What happened to that fearless attitude of yours?"

"Just shut the fuck up and switch with me, you bitch-"

Natia's voice trailed off into a high-pitched squeal as a part of the ladder she grasped tore right off of its foundation. Natia's heart pounded unbelievably swiftly, believing she would fall if she didn't pull herself together. After squealing so loudly in the presence of Ryo, her cheeks flared up in redness as she looked down as if Ryo could witness her sudden change in emotion. Her squeal created a breakthrough in her embarrassment.

"Fuck, just do what I say already!" Natia's voice squealed even more as she attempted to control her unbearably tense throat. "Don't question it, just-"

Their existing pressure on the ladder caused one of the parts of the ladder near Natia's feet to collapse altogether. Ryo watched as Natia fell down the hole without attempting to activate her ignition booster; her neural link had been too frightened and failed to concentrate her thoughts upon activating them to recover in time.

"Natia!" Ryo shouted, releasing his grip on the ladder to activate his ignition booster. He propelled forward as Natia screamed from falling. He grabbed ahold of Natia's waist and spun around to let his back cushion the fall into the Hullbreaker Tunnels. The two of them collapsed down into a pile of moistened bones from disfigured and skeletal remains, with Ryo landing first to protect Natia from falling. As they landed, Natia faced Ryo with her eyes closed as he held her waist tightly to stop her from acting fearful.

"Get off of me!" Natia shouted, pushing herself off of Ryo and brushing aside the shattered bones on her body from their fall. She shuddered after realizing that a Nakai touched and held her like that, stepping on the side to recover from her embarrassment.

Ryo back stung in response to his fall, but it was only temporary. He recovered from his fall and his eyes were stunned by a sudden discharge of light enveloping his eyes with vibrant reflections of tropical colors. A vast stream of crystalline aquamarine water flowed down moss-covered rocks that created a miniature waterfall. Small stepping stones were laid out for people to walk across. The sun's natural light reflected off of the streams, emitting a blossoming rainbow from its wake.

"Whoa... look at that," Ryo said, as he believed the Hullbreaker Tunnels to be as horrendously corpse-like as the Virgo Factory. He was amazed at the breathtaking fluorescent sights that he didn't know existed beneath the ground. Natia joined him, grabbing her signal tracer. However, she realized that after she had fallen, the tracer had crashed into the bones below and destroyed itself to render it useless.

"Shit. I broke it on accident," Natia complained, kicking back the shattered pieces of her signal tracer across the cave. She hastily suggested an idea that placed their case in jeopardy. "Guess I'm going to have to go back and get another one."

"And you're going to leave me here?" Ryo intervened, disagreeing with her idea after admiring the beauty of the Hullbreaker Tunnels. "I don't think so. We can ask the miners here about it. Maybe this place isn't so bad as we thought."

"Don't judge a book by its cover, dumbass," Natia said, crossing her arms together. "Have you forgotten that this place is a ship graveyard for the fallen? Besides, we landed in a bunch of fucking bones earlier, and you want us to keep going? Are you insane?"

"Stop being so pessimistic," Ryo stated as he approached Natia with a tiresome expression underneath his helmet visor. Instead of keeping his helmet on, Ryo deactivated it so Natia could see his facial expressions. "Why is it that you're so separate from everyone else? Why don't you think in terms of peace like the others at Sunlight? Why are you so obsessed with death?"

Natia stared down into the ground as she stayed silent in her response. Ryo hadn't witnessed this version of Natia before, where she would decline to speak instead of reply back in her usual menacing tone.

"Because... you already know me and my story," Natia replied with a hushed tone, speaking so delicately as if she didn't recognize Ryo as an enemy. "You listened back then and knew that I was holding a grudge against the Japanese for what they did. You even scolded me about it. The truth is, I'm afraid of people dying, yet I lie to myself about it all the time to make me forget about what happened to Iran."

"Natia, wait." Ryo interrupted, not wanting to bring back the harshness of her memories.

Natia removed her helmet visor so that Ryo could see her face; except Natia didn't make eye contact with him. Her face trembled with regret as her hazelnut pupils quivered in doubt. The light breeze from the Hullbreaker Tunnel's exits brushed her short hair aside. "I just hate people..." She exhaled, clenching her fists. "They use and take advantage of you like you're nothing. They hurt you and your family. They touch you in places you don't like, and they-"

Natia paused, realizing that she went too into depth about her past. Her face flared up in embarrassment. "Sorry. I didn't mean to say that," She apologized, looking into Ryo's eyes with confidence. "But this is who I am, Nakai. Either you deal with it or you can just go home. I know you're tired of me already. You and Sumire are both the same, as with the rest of Sunlight. I know they hate me, but I don't care. I don't need friends. I know you hate me. So stop acting like-"

Ryo placed his hand on Natia's right shoulder to comfort her over her expression of guilt and pent-up aggression. Her nanosuit was filled with warmth from her peaking embarrassment and expression of her abysmal thoughts of her social demise from the others. However, deep down, Ryo knew her pain was extremely similar to his. During their previous battle in the Virgo District, Ryo expressed his unending passion to protect his sister from Natia's antics, and he still held his promise as strong as ever. However, none of that would have been possible with Natia.

"Now, you know that isn't true," Ryo interjected. "Sometimes people will always feel like the world's never on their side. So many people feel that way, including me. And sometimes it's unexplainable too. When I was young, I hurt someone so bad that I was so ashamed of myself for years. I drowned out my sorrows by joining the Yakuza, even when I didn't know the path out of it was. But eventually, I made it a goal to come back to life and find that person I hurt to apologize to them. I wanted to break free from the people who held me down for so long and leave that life because I believe that everyone has a chance to come back from who they were. We were all vulnerable, carefree, and living among equal terms until chaos strikes us. And when that happens, who can we blame? It may just be fate. But we can't let it take us over. Not ever."

"Why... why are you so confident?" Natia exclaimed after cherishing Ryo's comfort. "You're the one that's supposed to be broken, but now, I'm the one that is. I've been broken for so long, and I can't escape from it. I'm so broken." She cried. Her voice was beginning to stray away from being monotone to fluctuating with her passionate emotions.

"I don't think you're broken," Ryo said, engulfing himself with a heart strong attitude to admire Natia. "You're incredibly strong and talented. You fight with so much passion and you have goals too. It doesn't matter if your goals are little, because the little goals matter too. You still look for the future, and even if it means beating me, at least you still can feel a certain way. You are taking control, little by little. You just need a push in the right direction. You need-"

Ryo stopped. He was ranting for so long that he hadn't noticed Natia tearing up from his compliments and lectures about her self-control. But most importantly, Ryo hadn't noticed Natia holding his right palm with both of her soft and tender hands, nuzzling against it with her cheek to embrace the warmth. Ryo's heart nearly ceased the moment he saw Natia's dark-skinned and innocent face, which contrasted with her usual dull personality. Her hazelnut eyes lit up in sparkling passion after Ryo's encouragement powered her inner desires up. As all of those marvelous sights combined themselves, Ryo could only think of one thing the moment he examined Natia.

She's cute, Ryo thought. He couldn't help but notice how Natia's true self after expressing her emotions appeared drastically different from her usual impolite antics. Even after her longing hatred for the Nakais and their existence as Japanese folk, she still agreed to journey with Ryo through the case at the Hullbreaker Tunnels. Even after she battled Ryo seeking to obtain the V2 nanosuit to boost her egocentric personality, she still accepted Ryo's words even if it was in the harshest manner possible. Yet seeing all of those moments combined made Natia appear much more different than usual.

Natia's calmed, yet nervous face embracing Ryo's guidance and warmth even made his heart pound endearingly. Her perky complexion lightly blossomed cheeks, and her watery eyes made her appear overly adorable.

"Natia..." Ryo whispered, seemingly forgetting all about her past rudimentary antics. He wanted to be increasingly honest and to not hold anything back, knowing that Natia despised opposing people who concealed emotions. He had seemingly forgotten everything about April in that given moment, even if she had wanted Ryo to confess to her. It seemed that Ryo wanted to leap farther beyond the moment when her accident occurred, believing that it would be overly selfish and ruthless if he were to stray towards a static path. It would take another month for April to recover, and Ryo believed that nothing mattered more than letting the negativity subside and stow away.

He even thought that perhaps, if he were to stray away from that path, he could escape his past.

"W-what?" Natia asked, gleaming directly into Ryo's eyes.

"Nothing." Ryo he immediately said. He could sense his tongue nearly about to fall off, and the anticipation of Natia attacking him began to rise in his mind. Even his cheeks began to blush after examining Natia's attractive face.

"Wha-" Natia could barely speak, as she began to lose her breath. "What?!"

An unanticipated explosion detonation erupted behind Ryo and Natia in the opening to the Hullbreaker Tunnels. Wooden debris, including planks, barrels, and other miscellaneous objects and trinkets one may find on a rummaging pirate vessel blasted across the opening where the rainbow's dazzling sparkle shined. Ryo and Natia could hear several manly voices yelling gruffly as more firework-like pops detonated along with their voices.

"Damn it." Ryo turned around, equipping his helmet visor. He stealthily dashed forward and placed his back against the edge of the dew-soaked tunnels to peek out at the suspecting vigilantes. Natia followed along, acting as if what Ryo stated before hadn't affected her. Several commoners wearing peasant tattered clothing were bound by sturdy rope as a group of pirates and plunderers were raiding a desolate wooden pirate ship stuck to a pile of sturdy rocks underneath its bilge.

One of the most notable pirates, however, was a young slim rose-haired individual wearing lilac-colored buckled breeches. Her waistcoat was brown and riddled with cutesy 8-bit pins that reminded Ryo of the hacker that invaded his V2 nanosuit. Even her sewen hemp black-skulled pirate hat had an 8-bit pixelized bunny rabbit that replaced the skull. It was clear that she was a part of the Melody group, but a female pirate out of all people was the last that Ryo had expected.

"Captain Charlotte!" One of the scruffy and burly pirates called to the female. They appeared drastically different from their captain as if they were not affiliated with Melody. They didn't even seem to use any of the pirate languages that their captain was about to make. "The treasure's gone! Should we tear the prisoners apart?"

The woman named Captain Charlotte confidently placed her tightened pirate leather boots among one of the wooden barrels and extended her body outwards to appear like a motivational beacon of hope for the other pirates. She smiled brightly, revealing her teeth as she sheathed a cybernetic cutlass made from the same material as the nanosuits. "Aye. Start with the wenches first. The scurvy dogs lied to us all. Rip them apart!"

"They're part of Melody," Natia commented through a hushed whisper after examining the captain's equipment. "Let's go already and take them down!

Ryo peeked out slightly further to see the pirates approaching the bound peasants, believing they were the miners that sought the wealth from the Hullbreaker Tunnels. He deduced that they were completely missing from the Virgo Factory after the invaders from Melody attacked the underground. As he peeked out even further, Captain Charlotte immediately caught them, even if her back was turned against them.

"Nirvana!" Captain Charlotte suddenly cried, spinning around without hesitation as she drew a cybernetic flintlock pistol from her holster. She fired an armor-piercing and explosive round towards Ryo's position, forcing the two of them to leap outwards to avoid the damage from the single bullet. Ryo and Natia hadn't expected such a clumsy pirate captain to catch them so hastily but noted that she had been equipped with advanced technology from Melody's technological arsenal. This included a nanosuit cloaked to appear like a pirate suit, cybernetically enhanced weapons, and a dual hearing booster to enhance the loudness of sounds around her to catch prey. She even wore an eyepatch and a sash around her neck with Melody's bunny logo etched on top.

Ryo and Natia drew their weapons as Captain Charlotte pointed her flintlock pistol at them with a grimace. Her pirate associates growled and ignored the bound civilians, supporting their captain by standing behind her. "Well now, what do we have here? Two carousers wearing the same apparel as me leader. And who might you two rabble-rousers be?"