Free Web NovelChapter 510: Turned Into Gacha?! - 510
"Sister!"
If she hadn’t realized it before, things had been laid bare to such an extent that Fubuki couldn’t possibly keep lying to herself anymore.
Right now, Tatsumaki was clearly letting her words go in one ear and out the other.
Or rather, she still believed Fubuki was being tricked, treating her like a naive child incapable of making her own judgments. This was something Fubuki found completely unbearable.
"Stop messing around! You know exactly what kind of people those researchers are, don’t you?!"
Tatsumaki barked, her voice laced with intense frustration at her sister’s refusal to live up to expectations.
Fubuki did know. Even though Tatsumaki had been aggressively cracking down on these researchers, she could only ever sabotage them indirectly.
She mostly relied on things like the ’collateral damage of battle’ to ruin their progress at the final hurdle. Deprived of results, their funding would dry up, making it impossible for them to keep operating.
However, there were also many laboratories backed by massive corporate funding—or completely owned by corporations.
Against those, Tatsumaki could only cause minor interference; she really couldn’t take any drastic action. But that was generally enough. After all, her goal wasn’t to save the world, but to let everyone know better than to target her and her sister.
Precisely because she understood her older sister’s desperate efforts and good intentions, Fubuki felt a chaotic mixture of anger and utter helplessness.
"I..."
Fubuki found herself at a loss for how to refuse. She realized that her lifelong habit of bowing down to her sister had become second nature.
More importantly, she had absolutely no solid evidence to rationally convince Tatsumaki otherwise.
Logically speaking, she truly knew next to nothing about Herta. Her defense of Alice stemmed entirely from her fondness for her, which wasn’t a logical argument at all.
Emotionally speaking, her sister’s protectiveness—and her desire to keep Fubuki from risking her life for a potential threat—was far more compelling than Fubuki defending a robot of unknown origins whom she had known for less than two months.
Even if the Blizzard Group never treated Alice like a mere machine, in the eyes of outsiders, that was exactly what she was.
With that thought, the weight of her helplessness grew even heavier.
"It’s alright."
Just as the silence in the room grew suffocating and Fubuki was drowning in her uncertainty, Alice’s free hand reached out and gently clasped the hand Fubuki was using to hold her.
What started as two palms lightly overlapping turned into Fubuki’s hand being completely engulfed by Alice’s. It felt as though those hands possessed the power to entirely shut out the storm raging outside.
"Alice doesn’t want to make things difficult for Fubuki. And besides..."
The black-haired girl looked up at Tatsumaki, who was still hovering in mid-air.
Tatsumaki’s face was incredibly dark, her eyes fixed firmly on their intertwined hands.
The fury burning in her gaze seemed on the verge of erupting, and she didn’t offer a single shred of warmth when she noticed Alice looking her way.
"Alice also wants to prove to Fubuki’s sister that Alice would never do anything to hurt Fubuki. That way, Fubuki won’t have to fight with her sister anymore."
The girl’s voice was gentle yet unwavering, acting like a splash of life-giving spring water onto Fubuki’s parched and fragile heart.
"Alice..."
Courage surged back into Fubuki’s heart to face Tatsumaki once more, but Alice had already gently slipped her hand away.
She offered Fubuki a confident, radiant smile. "Alice will definitely pass the test in no time!"
"...Yeah, I understand."
Faced with such an attitude, Fubuki couldn’t bring herself to stop her.
Or rather, precisely because she had always been the one overprotected by her sister, she understood that no matter how worried she was right now, she needed to give Alice her absolute trust.
She could only nod in agreement.
This scene undoubtedly grated on Tatsumaki’s nerves, but remarkably, she didn’t let her anger cloud her judgment this time.
She was proud and arrogant. While she didn’t believe the universe revolved around her, she did believe she could easily bend the world to her will.
But... what was with Fubuki’s smile just now? She was clearly planning to keep arguing with me, wasn’t she?
It wasn’t that Tatsumaki actually wanted to be argued with, but... why did Fubuki back down? She was clearly terrified of that robot being taken away, wasn’t she?
Why, under these circumstances, could she flash a smile like that—a smile she had never once shown to me?
An incomprehensible wave of confusion washed over Tatsumaki, completely distracting her from her anger.
"Sister... I’ll take my leave first. You promised me you wouldn’t hurt Alice, right?" Fubuki asked, turning her gaze back to Tatsumaki.
"Didn’t I already say so?" Tatsumaki muttered gruffly in response.
Having received the answer she wanted, Fubuki said goodbye to Alice and walked out of the room.
The staff member who had been stuck sitting in the front row for all this drama felt like they were sitting on a bed of needles, wondering if they were allowed to leave too.
Why did they have to be so incredibly unlucky? Of all people, they had to be spotted and ordered around by Tatsumaki herself... It was absolutely terrifying.
However, Tatsumaki had practically forgotten the person even existed.
Glancing at Alice, who was smiling at her with pure friendliness, Tatsumaki figured that no matter how much she said, it would probably go right over this robot’s head. She gave up on communicating entirely.
Dropping lightly to the ground, she began walking toward the exit, tossing a single command over her shoulder: "Follow me."
Tatsumaki’s demeanor was anything but welcoming, but Alice wasn’t particularly surprised. Put aside someone like Tatsumaki—who was a fiercely proud, utterly obsessive sister-complex incarnate—even an ordinary older sister would feel uneasy knowing a robot of completely mysterious origins had cozyed up to her sibling.
Alice didn’t hold any real grudge against Tatsumaki for getting violent, but... it was hard to say how things would go once Herta arrived.
Unlike Alice—or rather, unlike the vast majority of the Amber Clones—Herta was the least Amber-like version of herself. At the same time, her definition of ’offense’ was measured strictly by her own personal standards.
While Alice would look at things from Tatsumaki’s perspective and forgive her, Herta would step into the other person’s shoes just to fully understand the situation before thoroughly punishing them.
After all, there was no way she would let just any random nobody walk all over the precious head of a certified genius.
Realizing that Tatsumaki’s volatile personality would inevitably offend Herta once she arrived, Alice decided to put in some effort of her own.
"You’re Fubuki’s sister. Can Alice just call you Tatsumaki?"
Jogging a couple of steps to catch up and walk side-by-side with her, Alice initiated the conversation cheerfully.
Tatsumaki flicked her green eyes sideways to glance at her, quickly snapping her gaze back forward before speaking indifferently. "Whatever floats your boat."
"Do you have anything you like?"
"No."
"What about things you hate?"
"No."
"That’s wonderful!"
"?"
What did she mean, ’that’s wonderful’? Did this robot just short-circuit?
Tatsumaki looked askance at the black-haired girl who was currently sporting a totally goofy grin.
She couldn’t wrap her head around why Alice would suddenly say something like that. Couldn’t she tell that Tatsumaki was only giving half-hearted answers because she couldn’t be bothered to talk to her?
"Alice thought Tatsumaki was giving short answers because you hated Alice!"
As if sensing Tatsumaki turning to look at her, the silly robot’s smile grew even wider.
Before Tatsumaki could fire back with a sharp ’I do hate you,’ Alice beat her to the punch.
"If it’s because you’re troubled by something that you don’t want to talk to Alice, then let Alice help you solve your problems together!"
"...?"
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T/N: If you want advance Chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL
