Carnival Carnival (?)

Interrogation Room 102.

Who knew why it was named like that; it was the third room from the hallway on the fifth floor.

Mirinae pushed the door, holding it open for Asher.

Just like he remembered, there was a pair of comfy leather chairs in the middle of the room for them to sit on.

Leather restraints and encased wires rotted in the still, stuffy air.

Comfy wasn't the right word for this, he thought to himself as Mirinae shut the door behind him. She pushed a button next to her, turning on the equipment.

The room sighed as the fans of the headsets whirred to life.

"Please take a seat in the middle. Any questions for me before we get started?"

Asher shook his head, allowing Mirinae to fasten him to the chair.

"I don't think so. My friend already told me what will happen next."

But when she fit the headset onto his head, he suddenly had a nagging doubt.

Asher recalled how the System automatically protected him from Salvador's attempt at reading his mind.

'System, can you somehow disable that?'

[While that is impossible, I can make it so that M Corp's device will only be able to detect your memories of the past few days. Will that suffice?]

Asher nodded, accepting the System's request.

Mirinae looked at him, sensing his slight hesitation. He made an okay sign, signaling her to continue.

Soon, the two of them were geared up, with Asher strapped tightly onto his chair.

"Alright Mirinae. I'm ready."

He was a bit nervous. So many things happened to him over the past few days. He truthfully had no idea what memory the headset would pick.

She tapped a screen beside her, and Asher's eyes rolled to the back of his head.

...

Asher sneezed as curtains of dust irritated his nose.

Musty air and the stench of malicious intention.

He was in a familiar warehouse. Mirinae glanced around silently, taking note of every detail. Her eyes seemed to snap a picture with each fluttering blink. She shifted her gaze upward, noticing a figure sitting on the beams above. That figure was from Asher's memory. It was him in the past.

"This is the abandoned Industrial district. Criminals of all sorts gather here."

Mirinae's tone didn't imply anything, but Asher raised his hands in self defense.

"Just wait and-" He froze.

Sophie. Asher. His secret. Synchronization.

Cold sweat ran down his neck.

The System interrupted him.

[Due to your complete Synchronization, you technically control both bodies. So M Corp's device will assume both 'Asher' and the 'Scorched Girl' as the same entity. Thus, your appearances will match. Lucky you.]

The System seemed to find his plight amusing. It let out a sly remark at the end, breaking its usually emotionless demeanor to poke fun at him.

'...Whew.'

Asher nearly crumpled to the ground, relief flooding his body.

He didn't quite trust the Hana Association yet. The amount of crime they let go beneath their noses... The Overseer said life was much worse in the past, but he couldn't imagine such a thing.

"Gamma, Beta, stay outside. I'll check first." Alpha's chilling voice still caused Asher to shiver, despite merely being a memory.

Mirinae's attention was drawn to the voice at the door. Her eyes narrowed as Alpha walked in, checking the warehouse for any threats.

"The Carnival, one of the highest quality Fabric makers of Section 12," she said offhandedly.

Asher glanced back at Mirinae. The woman seemed to have some experience with them, judging by her stare.

Gamma and Beta walked in, both masked and expressionless.

A few dozen seconds passed before the other doors opened, revealing Yan's figure.

Asher froze, then subconsciously approached her. He reached for her face with his hand. Only after his arm phased through her did he snap out of his reverie.

Yan, unable to react to his touch, continued to walk to the center of the warehouse.

Asher noticed the girl flinch slightly as she noticed him sitting above her.

She tried to make her face impassive, beginning the meeting with well-hidden hesitation. He wanted to comfort her, but knew that this was only a memory.

Mirinae looked at him from the side, questioning him with her eyes. She noticed each person's reaction to the other.

The Messenger cared deeply for Asher, yet didn't dare show it due to the situation. Asher regarded the Messenger with near rueful nostalgia. Something happened between them in the time between this memory and the present.

She realized that the situation might be deeper than what the surface suggested.

The meeting began, and Mirinae shifted her attention back to the middle.

Watching Alpha hand over the cloth, Mirinae realized that the meeting was another 'Fabric deal'.

The Hana Association also dealt with them every few months or so, though in much higher quantities of Fabric and Ahn.

Ordinary armor was made obsolete years ago with the introduction of biofabric, as it was both lighter and more durable than armor made from any metal or ceramic.

Her own uniform was made from the Carnival's tempered Nuovo Fabric, tailored by the best clothmen of the Backstreets. Even though it didn't help much due to the defences of her own skin, its self-mending nature was convenient for all sorts of things. For example, not emerging naked from particularly intense subjugation missions. She learned that the hard way.

Just as their deal reached its closure, a squadron of the Kurokumo clan burst through the door, interrupting them. Yan took that moment to lock eyes with Asher above her, worry evident on her face.

From how Alpha stared at the Messenger, its mask twisting with cruel intention, Mirinae could tell what happened next. But that wouldn't make sense. How would the boy still be alive in such a case?

Meanwhile, Asher gazed at Yan's face as she texted his past self with reckless abandon. The careless girl didn't notice Alpha looking directly at her.

Asher reached his hand out, subconsciously brushing back her illusionary hair.

Mirinae couldn't handle it anymore.

"So are you lovers with this Messenger?" She wondered what relationship the Messenger had with him.

Asher blushed, hearing it stated so plainly. Then he remembered what happened this morning, and his words became stuck in his throat.

"No... we were never like that. Especially not now." He lowered his head, unwilling to explain further.

Mirinae shrugged, turning back to the commotion in the middle. She had learned over the years not to pry into other people's business. Everyone kept their secrets to themselves in the City. Her curiosity was piqued, but she stayed silent.

By the time Asher raised his head, the warehouse had emptied out, leaving Memory Asher and the Carnival the only ones inside.

His past self quivered on the beams lining the ceiling as Alpha's neck twisted and turned, ripping its head away from its body.

"There is a very delicious smell in this room..."

Even from his memory, Asher collapsed to his knees at the pure malice that exuded from Alpha's words.

Mirinae glanced back, pushing a scathing insult of his weak demeanor back down her throat. She remembered his determination at the physical exam.

Asher was a young, relatively innocent child. Although she could have easily stood her ground against the Carnival back when she was the same age, Mirinae grudgingly accepted that surviving the ensuing fight by itself took a respectable amount of skill.

She believed Asher had some sort of trump card that allowed him to survive this encounter that he didn't use in the physical exam against her.

That was partially true. Sophie was Asher's strongest form, and he didn't use it in his physical exam.

But it was also false; he didn't actually survive what followed, even with his synchronization.

Alpha's head rose, connected by a rope of bone and cartilage. It positioned itself near Asher's face, so that when the boy opened his eyes, all that would greet him was Alpha's expressionless mask.

"Hello. Meat."

Asher yelped, rolling away from the head subconsciously. Falling down, the only thing he could hold on to was Alpha's spine.

He winced as he saw the memory of him crashing onto the ground, his hand covered in unidentifiable slime.

Mirinae's gaze darkened. How did such a pathetic child survive the Carnival?

Amidst the settling dust, Alpha asked the boy about his relationship with the Messenger. The boy could only respond with stumbling stutters.

Pitiful, Mirinae thought to herself. Although she respected his determination, how would that be useful if he was like this in the face of adversity?

As Alpha approached him, Asher dashed for the door. However, his progress was impeded by Beta's hand snagging a strap of his clothes.

Greenish blue armor surfaced on the boy's skin, changing his appearance. He flipped himself onto Beta's arm, rushing forward for a kick, and then a club to its face when that attempt failed.

Before the boy could hit Beta's mask, it flicked him upward with ludicrous force.

Mirinae's eyes couldn't help but follow Asher's screaming body as it shot up, stopped, and shot back down, landing on the floor with a crack audible even outside the warehouse.

Remembering the first time she broke a bone, Mirinae grudgingly approved of the determination on the boy's face as he clenched his jaw, standing on his feet instead of succumbing to the pain.

Although she disagreed with the Overseer's evaluation of Asher's physical capability, she admitted that his sheer grit reserved him a spot in the ranks of Fixers.

Not giving Asher a chance to rest, Alpha extended its neck, wrapping around him in a painful squeeze.

The situation didn't look good. There seemed to be no hope for his survival, and she realized that perhaps Asher really died in this memory. Mirinae wondered if he had opted into a 'Life Insurance' plan, like a few of the spoiled rich folks of the Nest did.

Life Insurance was a misleading name. In loose terms, one uploaded their conscious to a neural network, though she herself wasn't too sure of the exact process. Then if they died, R Corp would create a clone of the body with a pre-analyzed genetic sample before their consciousness was once again placed inside. Thus, one could be effectively immortal, for a price.

Of course, being able to afford such an expense was merely a pipe dream to the majority of the Nest, not to mention the poor Backstreets. She heard from the Overseer that the service was somewhere along the lines of a million Ahn every few years. So there was no possibility that the boy did that.

And there were certain rumors floating around... R Corp's Singularity was much more than a simple cloning machine. The Overseer told her that even among those who could afford it, such as the higher leveled Fixers, usually didn't opt in. The Overseer would not, or could not, explain further.

Mirinae's focus was brought back to Asher, whose finger suddenly began to glow and sizzle with heat.

Although she was pleasantly surprised with his strange new power at first, the smell of burning flesh damped her excitement. It seemed like this was Asher's 'all in', Mirinae could tell that the heat alone would cause permanent nerve damage to a weak, physically inept person like him.

She glanced at his hand, noting the lack of injury on Asher's body. There were many explanations for such a phenomenon, some of which included K Corp Serums, nanomachines, or perhaps even more Ruinous magic.

Asher had powers that most could only dream of, uncanny abilities straight from the Ruins. Interesting.

*BOOM*

With the sacrifice of Asher's hand, he was finally let go from Alpha's grip.

Then he stood there, unmoving. He stared at the spine of the Alpha, ignoring the opportunity to escape as its companions were stunned.

Mirinae couldn't believe it. So many mistakes, yet this was the one that broke her.

Asher flinched as he felt Mirinae's gaze pierce straight through him.

"What were you thinking? Why didn't you run away?" Her amber eyes didn't show any anger, only disappointment. So much potential, wasted on an indecisive child, she thought.

"Look, " Asher said as he pointed to Alpha's spine.

A pair of centipede legs sprouted from each vertebrae on its spine. It skittered on the floor, digging itself back into Alpha's body and reattaching with a satisfying click.

Mirinae raised an eyebrow. That didn't answer her question, the boy dodged it by pointing at the obvious.

Asher looked at her, dazed at her lukewarm reaction.

His thoughts quickly shifted toward what would happen next. Now was just seconds away from the moment he truly dreaded.

"Um, can I turn around for...? I don't want to see..." If there was one thing Asher wanted to experience less than getting his arm ripped off, it was to witness his arm get ripped off instead.

It was a strange request, but imagining the sight of his arm splitting off of his body, his flesh straining with tension until it tore... made him queasy.

But Mirinae denied his request with a light shake of her head.

"Face your trauma. If your own fears are too much for you, I'll fail you."

Sensing his distress, Mirinae walked up to him, gently but firmly placing her hand on his head, holding it in place.

Asher's face scrunched up as Alpha shot toward his past self, but Mirinae's iron grip forced him to watch.