"Steff?"
Yuki wanted to tell her not to look, but it was too late. Steff saw the scene in the room. These were her sisterhood—Roger, Alice, Dorothy... even after such inhuman torture, Steff could still recognize them.
"You bastard..."
She raised her gun. Yuki knew that the hysteria inevitable in a Battle Sister had arrived. "Why did you just kill Roger!"
Without giving Yuki any chance to explain, Steff fired directly. The bolt round streaked out but missed. It didn't look like luck; it seemed more like she had intentionally pulled her aim.
"God-Emperor, why... why do You refuse to protect us?" She collapsed to her knees, weeping uncontrollably.
"Is she a bit too fragile?"
"Say less, Yuno. To be honest, she's much stronger than I imagined."
Yuno leaned against Yuki. "I did so much for you today, aren't you going to give me a reward?"
"A reward? What could I possibly give you?"
"Then I'll give you a reward. Let's talk when we get back."
For the overall gang war, this battle was merely a minor, though difficult, siege. The Battle Sister units temporarily withdrew from the battlefield to return to their station for rest and reorganization.
When Yuki and Yuno returned to their residence, Eleven and the siblings, Elia and her brother, finally breathed a sigh of relief. Their current role was essentially Yuki's house-guards—one a conjoined twin with physical capabilities exceeding normal humans, the other a near-Alpha level psyker. They were capable of stalling against weaker Chaos forces.
"Boss, you're finally back."
"Yeah, you've worked hard. Go get some rest."
Returning to their living quarters, Yuno flopped onto the sofa, kicking off her shoes. A tiny organism immediately scurried over to pick them up and arrange them neatly.
"Come here, let Mommy give you a hug."
Yuki watched Yuno spread her arms and suppressed the urge to lung forward. "You don't like this kind of play?"
"Weren't you going to tell me something serious?"
Yuno seemed a bit annoyed; this guy had no sense of romance. "You're no fun." She rested her chin on her hands, lying prone on the sofa. "I'm preparing to assemble Hive Fleet Kronos."
Hive Fleet Kronos was established by the Tyranids after the Thirteenth Black Crusade and the opening of the Great Rift to counter the increasingly powerful Chaos forces. Their goal was not traditional predation, but the hunting of Chaos. In the normal timeline, this fleet shouldn't appear for another hundred years. However, considering Yuno already knew the future, assembling it early was hardly surprising.
"So, you're planning to go to war with Chaos ahead of schedule?"
"Something like that. I was thinking... maybe you should lead this fleet."
"What happened to the custom fleet you promised me?"
Yuno waved her hand, and the psychic energy of the Great Devourer projected a massive hive fleet before Yuki. "There's no conflict, my love. You can command two fleets. Do you object?"
"I'd be more than happy to."
"Call me Mommy."
Yuki truly didn't know where Yuno had picked this up. Then again, her primary way of understanding his world was through the internet. "..." He couldn't bring himself to say it.
Yuno looked at Yuki, whose face was almost turning red, and found it incredibly amusing. "Hurry up."
Just as Yuki resolved to indulge in a bit of roleplay for the sake of his girlfriend and two hive fleets, a sound from the laboratory interrupted them.
"What was that noise?"
Yuno turned her head, her face filled with pleasant surprise. "Oh, it seems its incubation was much faster than I expected."
She rose from the sofa and led Yuki to the lab. Inside was a unique culture vat. According to Yuno, this was a more advanced but less efficient Tyranid birthing pool. "I spent a lot of effort on this. You know, back on the ship, I wouldn't do this personally."
Yuno proudly showed Yuki her creation: a Lictor.
A Lictor was an elite unit of the Tyranids, possessing god-tier optical camouflage and assassination capabilities. Against a generic Space Marine chapter, it was capable of wiping them all out.
"I hand-crafted this one myself."
"This... it's magnificent." Yuki had only seen these monsters in games; they were terrifying enemies. In the games, the scale of a Lictor couldn't be fully appreciated—in reality, its stature was even more massive than a Primaris Space Marine. Standing before it, his human body felt like a small insect.
It lowered its head and nuzzled against Yuki's face.
"Yuno, what kind of consciousness does this creature have?"
"It's a fragment of my own. It might be hard to understand, but essentially it is me, though it has its own decision-making autonomy for management purposes."
"It's beautiful."
Yuno never expected that the first time she would feel a sense of jealousy would be toward a Lictor clone she created herself. "So you like this type? And here I spent so much thought making this human body."
"It's fine, I love both of you!"
Yuno curled her lip and patted the Lictor's chitinous shell. "This is a pilot experiment. It will evolve psychic organs. The future Hive Fleet Kronos will be even more powerful than the one in the original timeline."
"Wow."
"Can you give me a different reaction?"
"Um, is there a way for me to evolve a bit more too?"
Yuno didn't seem surprised by the request. "Sure. I was planning to use this to train you anyway. Your combat skills in the fight against the Keeper of Secrets were... noticeably poor."
"Me? Fight a Lictor?"
Thirty-two seconds after the fight between the Lictor and Yuki began, Yuki was impaled through the chest by the Lictor's back-spike.
"AAAAAAAAARGH! IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS!"
"I coated the Lictor's spikes and claws with a fluid that amplifies pain perception. You'd better be careful."
Yuki couldn't see the Lictor's movements at all, and it hadn't even activated its optical camouflage yet.
Half a day later, the training ground was covered in blood. Yuki had even lost consciousness. Yuno approached, feeling a bit guilty. "I might have played a bit too hard."
Yuki didn't move. Yuno began to panic. "Yuki? Are you okay?"
This was bad!
Yuno scooped Yuki up and rushed to the digestion pool, which was full of biomass. She pushed Yuki directly into the biomass and activated her highest genetic authority, forcibly repairing his body.
After about half an hour, there was still no movement from Yuki. Sweat broke out on Yuno's brow. She held Yuki's soul, but creating a suitable body was not easy.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Yuki was actually dead.