"A job?!" Both sisters cried out at once.
Hearing Twiggy's words, the Nymph sisters looked dazed all over again.
Every word Twiggy said, they understood on its own — but strung together, somehow the whole thing only got more confusing.
"When it comes down to it, it's still about these two rings. The power inside them has mostly dissipated by now, but I've noticed the rings absorb stray Ether on their own to recharge themselves."
Twiggy had discovered this while channeling Ether into the rings — the process was slow, but the rings really were steadily recharging on their own. The catch was that she herself couldn't tap into the Ether stored inside.
To Twiggy, the two rings were like a pair of portable power banks: they could recharge themselves just fine, but because the cables didn't match her port, she couldn't draw on the power stored within.
"So that makes you two... my adapters!"
Just as Odile had once channeled the ring's power for Twiggy, all these years later the two sisters could still draw on the rings purely by instinct — because they'd long since fused with the rings, effectively becoming something like guardian spirits bound to them.
Even if the sisters faded away entirely, it wouldn't diminish the rings' power — Twiggy could always work out how to use them on her own later. But why bother, when this was so much more convenient right now?
"But... are you sure this won't cause any problems?"
Odette still looked worried, but beside her, her elder sister was already weighing the possibilities.
But Twiggy didn't have the patience to go back and forth with the two of them.
Today, whether they agreed or not, it was happening either way.
"Enough talk! Get into the rings, now! I need you two to help me cultivate!"
As she spoke, the two rings on Twiggy's hands lit up at once — one glowing black, the other white.
Immediately after, Odile and Odette's bodies were pulled toward the rings against their will, vanishing from Twiggy's sight in the blink of an eye.
Storing the two sisters inside the rings would further slow their rate of dissipation.
Twiggy then looked at the rings, glowing brighter now that they'd absorbed the two sisters, and let out a breath of relief.
"Alright. Now I can actually get some rest."
With that, Twiggy made her way back to the room where the earlier battle had taken place, found somewhere to lie down, and quietly closed her eyes to recover her focus.
She needed to think hard about how best to exploit — no, wait, how to arrange some experiments for her two ghost girls — no, that's not it either — some work for them.
While Twiggy was lost in thought, Geno had already reached the top floor of the Ballet Twins Building — the very spot where Nicole and the others had been surrounded by the Rebel Soldiers earlier.
He was, however, running a little late.
"Ow, ow, ow — easy, easy!"
"Just bear with it, Nicole, almost done."
"Hey, Anby, could you grab my hydraulic rod for me? I want to see if it's still usable."
"We really do owe you all our thanks. On behalf of my colleagues at Public Security, I appreciate everything you've done."
The moment Geno stepped into the hall, the sight that greeted him was the Cunning Hares — utterly spent, burned down to nothing but embers — along with Zhu Yuan and her group.
The hall was also filled with a crowd of injured, unconscious Public Security officers, and among them was a figure that caught Geno completely off guard.
"What in the world happened to you all? And — isn't that Hoshimi Miyabi? She's down too? Are these Rebel Soldiers really that strong?"
Truth be told, Geno had wondered whether coming here at all would be necessary — he'd run into Hoshimi Miyabi and her group earlier, and figured that with a Void Hunter of her caliber on hand, there wouldn't be much left for him to do.
But judging by what he was looking at now, that clearly wasn't the case.
The unstoppable Void Hunter had actually gone down?! What did that even mean?!
"It's a long story. Let me make it short — uh, actually, it's kind of long again."
Billy had been rambling nonsense off to the side for a while now, and Nicole nearly couldn't stop herself from smacking him again.
But looking down at her own bandaged arm, she decided to hold back, if only to spare herself another ounce of pain.
After all, Anby's bandaging skills left a great deal to be desired.
"Long story short — the few of us teamed up and took down our opponent, though it cost us dearly. As for that fool of a fox, she got ambushed. She's unconscious right now, and her sword's been stolen too."
"Her sword?"
As Nicole laid out the situation, Geno's ear caught on one key detail — Hoshimi Miyabi's sword.
Honestly, that peculiar blade had left quite an impression on him.
Not just because it summoned some little floating spirit inside Hollows, almost like a pet.
But also because of the sheer power sealed within it.
The strength of that power was something Geno still hadn't been able to forget.
He'd only ever seen it from flat on the ground, watching Hoshimi Miyabi swing the blade in a simple arc, never getting a full view of its power. But even that faint leakage had been enough to tell him the sword was no ordinary weapon.
If that was the case, then whoever had stolen it from Hoshimi Miyabi clearly meant to put that power to use for something.
Just as Geno was turning this over in his mind, a sudden noise cut through the air.
"Hey, hey, hey! Come in, respond! Hello! Can you hear me?!"
"That voice... Little Geno?"
The expression on Eous's face vanished in an instant, replaced by a mischievous, ghost-face-like symbol, and its voice shifted into Little Geno's cheeky tone instead of Fairy's usual one.
"Geno, thank god you're here! I couldn't reach you no matter what I tried before."
The earlier interference had probably been Odile's soul at work — and the fact that Little Geno had been forced to reach out to Nicole and the others for help now meant something serious had definitely happened.
"Little Geno, what's going on?"
Geno crouched down, listening to Little Geno's voice — forcibly calm, but still carrying an undertone of agitation.
"Long story short — New Eridu's under attack! The enemy is the Rebel Soldiers and the Exaltists!"
"What?!"
The words alone were shocking enough — New Eridu itself, under attack!
"It happened out of nowhere. Let's talk while we move."
Little Geno swept a glance across the room. Geno's side wasn't in great shape either — practically the only one still able to move was Geno himself. So Little Geno told him to get moving first, then cut the call.
Watching Eous reconnect, the group suddenly realized it had been a while since anyone had heard from Belle.
"Don't tell me something's happened to the Proxy too?!"
"Mm-hm, mm-hm-hm-hm!" (I don't know either — Belle just suddenly cut off contact!)
The earlier fighting had been so intense that no one had noticed exactly when Belle's connection had dropped.
By the time they thought to check, it seemed like it might already be too late.
"If even Eous doesn't know, then we'll just have to ask Little Geno. Geno, you—"
Just as everyone turned to press Geno for more information, there was no trace of him left.
____
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