As the sound of the tour bus faded into the distance, Fran raised her hand and started poking Clara’s head, all while saying:
“Clara dear~ You were a bit too impatient, weren’t you? Deliberately letting that slip so obviously… If Rabbi-san really were a mole, she wouldn’t fall for it that easily, you know?”
“Ow, ow…”
Clara winced, eyes squeezing shut from the poking.
Just moments ago, she’d thought her little nudge was perfectly executed.
“Clara-san, anything that comes out of our mouths, the Fourth Disaster people will treat with suspicion. But if they discover it themselves, they’ll believe it’s the truth.”
“Ugh… Even Sista…”
Even Sista—the little angel who always stood firmly on her side—was saying this. Clara clutched her faintly aching chest, tears welling up with nowhere to fall.
Fran summed it up: “In short, your impulsive move turned a ‘good plan’ into a ‘bad one,’ and now we have even more things to worry about.”
No one would fully buy an opponent’s words, but the situation hadn’t allowed them to intervene. They could only watch as Clara played a self-satisfied, terrible move.
“Uuu—”
Feeling the pressure from everyone’s stares, Clara shut her eyes again in discomfort.
“Alright~”
Unable to watch any longer, Lucia stepped in to change the subject. “S-so, what do we do with these half-dead rabbits?”
“First treat them, then use them for research. Free experimental subjects shouldn’t go to waste…” Fran rubbed her hands together while staring at the rabbits in the cage—for some reason, she even licked her lips.
Clara hurriedly warned: “Huh? You better not kill them!”
As long as the Moon Rabbit combat units could make a “king’s return,” there might still be a way to persuade them. Until then, they had to keep them alive…
After all, these Moon Rabbits were more or less her little subordinates now.
“Hmph, you sure care a lot about these Moon Rabbits.”
Fran let out a little humph.
“Then let’s feed them something first, and take them to the infirmary to treat their wounds.”
Clara crouched beside the cage, gazing through the bars at the weakened rabbits.
They’d been full of energy last night, but now they were barely hanging on.
They looked so pitiful.
But they had survived the night. Now came the task of figuring out how to settle them properly.
“Fran, these Moon Rabbits aren’t stupid. In a way, their thinking is actually pretty flexible… Do you think there’s any way to make them understand what we’re thinking and comprehend what we say?”
If they could communicate, so many things would become much easier.
“That’s simple—leave it to me. A little modification and they’ll be fine~”
Fran answered lightly at first, but then corrected herself:
“Though… doing it here in this resort might be tricky. We don’t have enough equipment. It’s like asking me to perform brain surgery on you with a watermelon knife. I might dare to cut, but would you dare to let me?”
That was a truly horrifying analogy. Clara shook her head vigorously.
“We’d have to go back to Central Hub City…”
“…Then someone needs to watch them in the meantime.”
“Senpai, are you worried they’ll break out? In that case, leave the guarding to me!”
Lucia volunteered enthusiastically, but Clara wasn’t entirely convinced.
In front of those rabbits’ teeth, this cage was as fragile as a biscuit.
“I know how dangerous they are.”
Yet Lucia put her hands on her hips, brimming with confidence:
“Don’t worry! There’s no way they’re getting out of the cage I made!”
Since they had decided to use “Azure Cavalry” as an undercover agent to sow distrust within the enemy ranks, the next steps were straightforward.
Gather more intelligence. Then disguise deliveries as coming from Azure Cavalry.
Of course, they also had to keep close tabs on Azure Cavalry from the Moon Rabbit combat unit side—ideally make contact with the Mother Body through him.
But the main body couldn’t help with that, and the Moon Rabbits were temporarily under arrest.
So for the time being, there wasn’t much to do.
To avoid being picked off one by one, everyone had to stay inside the hangar. Even going to the resort for meals required moving in groups, and they had to remain in constant contact.
Akamichi Hoshisei and Aoi Midori were live-streaming their patrol through the rainforest near the hangar;
Lucia was tinkering with some little invention using materials inside the hangar;
Clara sat alone in front of the hangar doors, staring blankly at the reddish sea in the distance. Her eyes were unfocused, almost as if her soul had wandered off.
In reality, this was the result of shifting most of her consciousness to another body—so her main body appeared somewhat dazed, even ignoring Fran’s teasing entirely.
“Clara-san…”
With her exoskeleton still charging and thus unable to join the patrol, Sista came over on her own initiative.
Seeing no response, she leaned down, pinched a soft bit of Clara’s cheek, and gently pulled it outward.
“Clara-san.”
“Huh? Oh!”
Clara snapped back to herself and rubbed her cheek where it had been tugged and snapped back.
“Sista, is something wrong?”
Sista sat down beside Clara, joining her in gazing at the sea.
She casually grabbed a small tentacle, rolling it between her fingers.
“Earlier… it seemed like Clara-san and I had a difference of opinion… You want to save the Moon Rabbit species. Is it out of sympathy?”
This girl actually cared about something like that?
She was more sensitive than she appeared—though her face gave nothing away.
“No, I don’t feel sympathy for Moon Rabbits as lunar cockroaches. Letting them overrun everything would only be disastrous no matter how you look at it… More precisely, I want to render them harmless.”
“Harmless?”
“They’re life forms created by design. The Fourth Disaster’s goal in modifying the Moon Rabbits is obvious: turn them into biological weapons to be sent into target sites. Relying on their stealthy movements and rapid reproduction, they can destroy an entire station’s ecosystem in a short time.”
So far, these modified Moon Rabbits had proven very successful as bioweapons.
“Simply pitying a species like that will only make things worse… But if we can fundamentally alter their ecology—control their numbers, reduce their reproductive urges, increase individual intelligence and quality—perhaps we can change this race’s fate.”
“Is that possible?”
“Yes.”
Clara answered with firm conviction.
“What I saw in the Rabbit Hole gave me hope. These rabbits are smarter than expected. If we can convince more Moon Rabbits to break free from the Mother Body’s control, then maybe…”
Clara reached into her pocket and pulled out the virus injector Fran had given her.
If it ultimately proved impossible, this virus would be the final trump card.
“Sista, in a way… those Moon Rabbits are a lot like you… Oh, no, I’m not insulting you.”
Moon Rabbits were like cockroaches.
Calling someone a Moon Rabbit was never a compliment.
“Me?”
Now, Sista actually understood what Clara meant.
She was a hero designed from the start; Moon Rabbits were biological weapons designed from the start. Both were walking paths someone else had laid out for them…
“Do you remember our promise from before?” Clara asked.
“Mm…”
Sista thought for a moment.
“You mean… the thing about wearing girls’ clothes once we get back to Central Hub City?”
Err, you seem to have duplicated a previous chapter.