Kotoko left the Kojima residence mere minutes after she'd arrived.

That didn't take long.

Now my problem is actually getting there.

And that was easier said than done, she thought, given her current situation.

How'd I ever get used to this body, anyway!?

After putting their heads together, they – Minoru, Yuzuki, Freya and herself – were able to come up with something. Minoru and Yuzuki would hack into Abstergo Japan's database and take control of their cameras, with the aid of Freya's fragment and the rest of their persocoms on hand. Freya herself was still locked in combat with Siren, and according to her, she was fighting an uphill battle trying to fend off the Nephilim and disable the hacked persocoms at the same time. As for Kotoko, she was in charge of getting the countermeasure to where it needed to be, and then activating it right there and then. It was a simple plan, at least in theory.

In practice, however…

…What a pain.

As inconvenient as it was, Kotoko knew this was the most logical way to go. But even though sheknew her options were limited in this regard, it didn't make things any less troublesome. The task was as precarious as it was risky, and between her two bodies, the laptop was obviously the more expendable choice. Having one of Kojima's other persocoms carry her to her destination might've been more convenient, but that'd just add one more casualty they didn't need.

At least I won't need to stay this way for long.

Her full-sized body remained in the laboratory in their house, hooked up to the main computer. She didn't need her current body to be in harm's way, after all, and given what she needed to do, she was better off leaving her main body right where it was. Given her role in what they were to do next, she knew it wouldn't hurt for her to take advantage of the extra processing power at her disposal.

Meanwhile, Kotoko in her original laptop form would travel all the way to where Freya and Siren were locked in combat, at which point she would get to work. To that end, she brought along a trump card she carried in one of Kojima's old socks. Pretty sure there's a joke about socks and explosions somewhere, but I'm not really in the mood right now.

On top of that, she'd commandeered an old radio-controlled car – extracted from the huge box of junk Kojima had set aside for what she called his 'nerd projects' – to serve as her ride. Conveniently enough, the project in question involved a high school-aged Kojima seeing whether Kotoko herself could control the car in lieu of the physical remote control, which went missing some time ago. It was a success – isn't Bluetooth great? – but neither human nor persocom imagined there'd ever be a practical use for it.

Until now.

Of course, thought Kotoko, it didn't change the fact that she'd gotten so used to the mobility that came with being human-sized that she'd forgotten what it was like to be so tiny. The unwanted glances and stares she drew from the few passersby who happened to still be up and about at this time of night were annoying, but at the very least, an annoyance was all it was. Aggravating as this is, it's the least of our worries right now.

On the other hand, there were some real disadvantages Kotoko had to bear with. While she managed to set a course that made sure she'd encounter as few complications as possible, the fact remained that her diminutive form still gave her twice as many obstacles – traffic, for one, not to mention stray cats and dogs – to worry about. And even though the trip was at least shorter than it might have been had she chosen to walk the whole way, her travel time was still longer than it would've been in her full-sized form.

No use complaining, I guess.

With that, Kotoko put her irritations aside as she focused on getting to her destination as quickly as she possibly could.

I just hope I get there before those two do any permanent damage…

At the Kokubunji mansion…

"Miss Freya, are you sure about this?" asked Minoru even as he was hard at work at the terminal in his study.

Yuzuki wasn't with them at the moment; she was downstairs, together with the other maid persocoms as they carried out their own roles in the plan. The persocom pacing back and forth in front of him was the one Nephilim drone they managed to capture intact when the mansion was attacked. Appearances aside, her behavior made it all too obvious to Minoru that Freya – or her fragment, at least – was in control of the drone's body at the moment.

And at his words, the persocom stopped pacing and turned to look at him.

"Believe me, I've thought this through," was Freya's grim response to the child prodigy. "I'd rather not take any more of these persocoms down the hard way than I've already had to."

"You do realize this could damage you as well?" he persisted. "Tanking bullets and blades and explosions is one thing, but what you're about to do…"

The possessed drone's eyes narrowed, her lips curling into a frown.

"I'm well aware, Minoru. I'm not thrilled about it myself, but it's the best of the bad ideas we've been able to come up with. Besides, this battle should've ended ages ago. It would have, if I wasn't holding back."

Minoru closed his eyes in concession of that point. Hacking the thralls one by one would be much less messy, but as Freya pointed out, there was simply no way Siren would just let her physically hack the thralls and shut them down. Ms. Hibiya might have been able to help – GUNGNIR would've ended this quickly – but she needed to be in her lab for it to work, and it was too much to hope that Abstergo hadn't sent anyone there on the off-chance they were to try something it. And of course, Siren had been equipped with a countermeasure that prevented Freya from simply accelerating and disabling the thralls – or, for that matter, releasing them by taking out Siren herself – in the blink of an eye.

Needless to say, this particular drastic measure was the only option they had left.

"The way the Nephilim and I are built, we should at least be able to withstand the worst of it. That's what I'm banking on, at least."

"Maybe," Minoru acknowledged, nodding. She had a point; considering the purposes Abstergo had in mind for Freya and Siren, it stood to reason that this particular contingency was something they had accounted for. The data they'd been able to examine also pointed towards Freya having been remodeled to take on entire armies and come out in one piece, so that assumption on Freya's part was certainly plausible. Kotoko wasn't likely to have acceded to it if it bore the risk of inflicting any lasting harm, either.

On the other hand…

"What about her thralls? You didn't forget that those are just ordinary persocoms?"

That got a reaction. The grim expression on the hijacked drone's face changed into one of guilt, though Freya said nothing for several seconds. What they were about to do would be bad for both Freya and Siren alike, but as Freya herself pointed out, the two of them would likely have been built to withstand such things in any case. Of course, the same couldn't be said for the ordinary persocoms Siren had hijacked and used against her.

Almost a minute passed before she replied.

"…I know that, too," came Freya's admission after a lengthy silence. The look on her borrowed body's face settled on one of mingled sorrow at her what her chosen course of action could do, and solemn resignation to follow through on it nonetheless.

"All we can do is hope this doesn't inflict any more permanent damage. I've already had to chop off their limbs and cut some of them to pieces as it is."

Minoru couldn't argue with that, so he said nothing.

"…Alright, then," he said finally.

"Guess we'll just have to hope and pray it works."

Despite his concession of her points, Minoru Kokubunji's concern didn't abate.

The only difference now was just who he was more concerned for.

Had she been human, Freya would've been on her last nerve by now.

This is getting ridiculous!

That was the thought running through Freya's mind as she parried yet another sword slash from the Nephilim, before kicking her away and then spinning around to do the same to a thrall that had crept up behind her. From there she retaliated by grappling a streetlamp some distance away, rocketing upward towards it.

And then Freya fired off a few rounds in Siren's direction, only for her adversary to dodge out of the way just in time. Her attempted reprisal thwarted, she leapt towards the rooftop just behind her, glaring at the Nephilim as she did.

"Why are you hesitating, Miss Freya?" called Siren from down below. "You know what you have to do to," this as she gestured at the thralls surrounding her with her sword hand, before another burst of gunfire forced her to dodge a second time, leaving the unfortunate thrall just right behind her to absorb the shots.

"Honestly, what's stopping you from simply going through these thralls to get at me?"

"You talk too much," growled Freya, before swooping down at the Nephilim in an attempt to take her head-

Dammit!

-Only for Siren to throw another thrall in her way at the last second.

Freya gazed, horrified, as the hijacked persocom's severed head went flying. What was I even thinking!?

"You're getting sloppy, Miss Freya," chided Siren as she capitalized on Freya's distraction by firing off a few shots of her own, hitting Freya just above her left shoulder. Then she lunged forward to drive her blade cleanly through her target's forehead-

I don't think so-!

Freya narrowly avoided the attack with a forward roll, before firing off a few counter shots as she grappled her way to the roof of a nearby building; this time, one of them struck home, hitting Siren in the midsection. But it was a small victory, and at any rate, the sight she beheld from her vantage point robbed her of any satisfaction it might have given her.

…Oh no.

The body parts of persocoms lay scattered all over the place. Apart from the severed head from her last failed attempt to take Siren's head off, Freya saw more than a few severed arms and legs here and there. Freya saw one of the thralls, a persocom with dark hair and cat ears, lying in two halves a good distance from where she was standing, as well as another who lay close by with bullet holes in her head. The thralls still shambling about vastly outnumbered those lying in pieces, but Freya still felt personally responsible for what she saw before her.

They didn't deserve this, Freya sadly thought as she looked at the carnage before her.

None of them deserved this…

"It's a mortifying sight, I know," agreed Siren from where she stood on the ground. "All these casualties of our little duel could've been avoided if you didn't insist on fighting."

Freya knew she was being messed with, but she still felt the sting of those words. It was her blade that hacked and slashed all those persocoms to pieces, and it was her fault some of them had bullet holes all over them. She cursed herself for the course of action she'd been forced into, and she cursed the one responsible for forcing her hand in the first place. She tightened her grip on the sword in her hand as she prepared her next attack.

But…

Something's coming.

The faint sound of a running motor gave Freya pause, so she looked to see what it was.

…Finally.

What looked like a radio-controlled car was speeding down the road to where they were. Riding atop the hood was a laptop persocom, with purple hair and wearing a kimono. The laptop's tiny hands gripped an old, gray sock, which clearly had something in it.

Kotoko.

Freya watched as the new arrivals came to a dead stop right in front of Siren.

"You need to stop this now, Siren!" scolded Kotoko, in the tone a disapproving mother would use on her misbehaving child, as she glared up at the silver-haired figure in front of her. "Haven't you done enough already?"

Siren froze at those words. From where Freya was standing, there was something in the way the Nephilim shifted that conveyed… guilt?

"I'm just following orders," Siren finally answered, once she'd gotten over her shock at Kotoko's sudden entrance. "This is why I was created."

Kotoko said nothing.

"Miss Freya's gone rogue. My orders are to capture her if possible, or eliminate her if necessary. You know this, mother."

"Are you sure that's what you want to do, Siren?" persisted the laptop, the disapproval on her face giving way to concern and sympathy. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to, you know."

"What I want is irrelevant, mother. The price of failure was made clear to me."

Several loaded moments passed. None of them had any answer to give, and even Siren's thralls were still as they awaited the commands of their puppeteer.

"There's no talking you out of this, is there?"

"I can't abandon my mission," Siren repeated with finality as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, mother."

"…I see," Kotoko sadly nodded. She reached into the old sock she'd brought…

…And pulled out a cylindrical device that could only be one thing.

"In that case, I'm sorry about this, too."

A blinding flash of light was the last thing Freya saw.

Then she fell to her knees, and knew no more.

"…That went well."

Reina Carmine sighed as she stepped out of the car.

"You ran into some trouble, ma'am?"

She look up at the agent's question, managing a tired smile as she did so. "No, not really. Did you?"

The agent in question, a young, Caucasian-looking male who looked barely out of college – shook his head. "The traitor and his men were nowhere to be found, but the Chateau's been secured. We've got agents watching any and all their known hangouts, so it's only a matter of time before we have them, too."

She nodded at that report as she walked to the passenger side of her car, before opening the door and revealing her sleeping companion.

"Well done," she said as she nodded approvingly. "Now, be a dear and help me get him on the stretcher, will you?"

He did so. "Anything else, ma'am?"

Reina frowned slightly, considering their situation as she checked her watch. 12:15 AM. Just slightly ahead of schedule. Perfect.

"Right," she nodded. "Well…"

"Get the plane ready. We leave by sunrise."

"Destination?" asked the agent as he tilted his head.

"Italy. Abstergo Italy."

"Right," he acknowledged, before taking the stretcher and taking his leave.

A/N: Hey, guys. I know it's been a while since the last update, sorry about that - things have been crazy on my end for quite a while, and the goings-on this past year haven't been helping either.

For those of you who are curious, it IS in fact possible to modify an RC car so it works via Bluetooth, in which case you'd control it using a smartphone app.

Lemme know what you think of this update, won't you? I just hope the hiatus hasn't made me rusty.

And until this whole thing blows over, let's all stay nice and safe.