After quickly returning to the police chief's office, we ran into a small problem: Claire was already heading downstairs, so we had to act fast. By the elevator, judging from the glow, Sherry was still standing there—and she was someone we shouldn't involve yet. More than that, it would be better if she didn't notice us at all. Fortunately, the ceilings here were high enough, and it was possible to access the elevator shaft from above. With acceleration, we could slip past unnoticed by a twelve-year-old girl (give or take—maybe even younger). There was no reason to scare her, especially since I had my own plans for that particular individual. I'd rather not spoil the first impression.
So what was the problem? Simple—Katherine. There was no time to teach her how to move along the "upper routes," and self-training would take far too long. We could have left her here, but there was a chance we wouldn't be coming back this way. All in all, I'd have to carry her on my back.
"Sorry in advance for the inconvenience," I murmured quietly, making sure the girl in the next room wouldn't hear us.
"Wha—" Miss Warren didn't get a chance to finish. I scooped her up with my left arm and pressed her against me while using my other limbs to shift our position in space.
The Four Eyes merely rolled her eyes and silently joined me on the ceiling. Acceleration—and I tore through the reinforced mesh at the top of the elevator shaft with my durable body, flashing past the room with Sherry in a heartbeat. A jump down, catching my precious cargo in my arms so she wouldn't bounce on landing—she was the most fragile of the three of us—and then a landing on top of the elevator car, now without a passenger. A faint sense of déjà vu crept in. I slid inside through the dented roof of the elevator and set my burden back on her feet.
"Wimp," Yamata hissed softly as she landed beside us, now waiting for her regeneration to finish. It wasn't that she'd been completely wrecked, but her legs had buckled. Acceleration had done its job, and durability—well, that was something I'd boosted only for myself. She'd been spared my fate during the first few hours (hell, throughout the entire time!).
"Brute," Katherine shot back, gracefully fixing her hair. Ah—one blonde was clearly growing more spirited, and the unprepared Yamata nearly collided with the doorframe.
"Both of you, quiet," I hissed, quickly moving down the corridor just in time to see Claire enter a steel door, crossbow at the ready.
A crazy idea immediately took hold. Climbing back up to the ceiling, I began to pry it open above the doorway. No one would ever think to look there. And getting out through it would be impossible unless you could move along walls—or happened to have a stepladder handy. I passed the chunks of masonry to the Four Eyes, who quietly stacked them by the wall. We did all of this in near-total silence, so as not to miss a single sound from behind the door.
"Not bad. Not bad at all, miss. But no one is leaving my city! Everyone will die anyway—we're all already doomed." Judging by the voice, it was Irons. And one look at Katherine clenching her fists confirmed it.
"Calm down, Chief. You're not yourself. You're bleeding—what happened here?" That, naturally, was Claire.
"Shut up! I'm fine! You don't understand anything!" And the click of a weapon.
Interesting—who had whom in their sights? Too bad I couldn't peek yet. I'd made an opening, sure, but it was either stop and watch—losing the chance to widen it, and with it the moment with the exposed chief of police—or keep expanding the passage and rely solely on sound. I chose the latter.
"Those Umbrella monsters destroyed my beautiful city!" Footsteps followed. Judging by the outlines, the police chief was advancing on Claire, but she quickly moved away from the door and deeper into the room. Thankfully, I could see the lighting even through the walls.
"How could they do this to me after everything I did for them?!" The chief sounded hysterical—or maybe not. Even from the diary excerpts, he'd struck me as unhinged.
"So those entries were true! You worked for the corporation… If you're not planning to let me go anyway, satisfy my curiosity. I want to know what I'm supposedly dying for. What is this G-virus you mentioned in your diary?"
The girl was playing her part well—after all, she clearly had no intention of dying, judging by the weapon tucked behind her back. And it seemed she'd "swiped" the rest of the diary before the Four Eyes ever got to it; otherwise, it would be in my hands now. I'd love to take even a quick look at it.
"So it's with you, you filthy little brat?! Fine—doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter anymore. I'll grant your last request, because I am a noble person. This virus turns people into powerful Bio-Organic Weapons—hundreds, no! Thousands of times more powerful than the T-virus."
The police chief advanced on Claire again as he spoke.
Yeah, right—as if it were that much! If it were, I'd have torn Nemesis apart with my bare hands, the same Nemesis pumped full of the T-virus, all while casually juggling a Tyrant on the side. Realistically, we're not talking about hundreds or thousands of times stronger—more like tenfold improvements. Sure, I'll allow that spontaneous mutations can push things further, but even if you look at canon and Birkin's final form, you're talking maybe a hundredfold—and that's mostly due to sheer size (roughly the scale of a building, give or take). And thank God for that. Otherwise, I'd already be dead. I've crossed paths with the esteemed William before, and if he'd really been that much stronger than a Tyrant, I wouldn't have moved on to the next stage of evolution—I'd still be lying there, smeared evenly across the street by his pipe.
(End of Chapter)
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