Sumeru.
Somewhere quiet.
A man in a distinctive uniform, face hidden behind a mask, suddenly stopped walking.
He turned around, a faintly amused smile tugging at his lips.
Then he said, "Come out, little one. Since you've followed me this far, I'll grant you one chance to speak with me."
Collei stepped out from the shadows behind him.
She glared at the masked man, hatred burning in her eyes and fury trembling in her voice.
"Doctor. I've found you."
The Doctor turned fully to face her. His expression remained relaxed, but her words only seemed to amuse him more.
"Oh? You're looking for me? That look in your eyes… don't tell me you're one of the little mice who escaped my lab?"
Mice?
Collei's glare darkened.
"You don't remember me?"
"There were too many failed experiments like you. I can't be bothered to remember all your names."
"But surely you remember the lab you built with such care."
She spoke the name of a place that no longer existed.
The Doctor tilted his head slightly, as if recalling.
"So you escaped that one… I remember—it was where we studied Eleazar and Archon residue. Hm?"
His words trailed off.
He lifted his gaze, eyes suddenly gleaming with curiosity as he examined the girl's smooth, pale hands—like he'd just discovered a fascinating new specimen.
"If you escaped from there, you should still show symptoms of Eleazar. But your hands look perfectly normal. Has your illness been cured? Interesting… And I don't sense any trace of Archon residue on you either. Could it be the experiment was actually successful—that the two forces canceled each other out completely?"
Collei frowned. "Wipe that disgusting look off your face."
The Doctor didn't get angry. He continued studying her—his gaze falling to the Dendro Vision hanging at her waist. A knowing smirk curved his lips.
"So it's the blessing of the God of Wisdom that gave you the courage for revenge. Good. Otherwise, if you'd stayed hidden, I might never have gotten such an excellent specimen."
"You think you're taking me back?"
"You came to me yourself."
"You'll die here."
"Hahaha… how ignorant—and pathetic—of a little mouse."
Before his laughter even faded, his figure vanished.
In an instant, he was behind Collei, hand poised to strike her neck unconscious.
But his hand hit nothing.
Collei's form had vanished as well.
The Doctor blinked, surprise flickering in his eyes.
Then a chill raced up his spine—a killing intent had locked onto him.
Without looking, he twisted his body aside.
An instant later, a dark arrow sliced past his cheek, silently severing a strand of his white hair.
If he'd been any slower, his skull would've been pierced through.
Recovering from the near miss, he turned around—only to see Collei, now clad in a sleek battle outfit, bow in hand. The black weapon radiated power, and the aura she exuded was anything but ordinary.
For the first time, his expression turned serious.
Sensing the unfamiliar, destructive energy in the air, he murmured, "This power you wield… it's not Dendro, is it?"
"You want to know?"
Collei drew her bowstring back.
"I'll tell you after you're dead."
The Doctor chuckled. "You do have the qualifications to seek revenge now… but only the qualifications. Killing me won't be that easy."
"Guess we'll find out."
"You can try. And once I've beaten you, I'll take my time learning exactly what's changed in your body."
Collei said nothing more.
Darkness suddenly engulfed the battlefield.
The Doctor's senses dulled to the extreme, every perception muffled by the void around him.
At the same time, that deadly feeling of being targeted returned—stronger than before.
He instinctively tried to dodge, but found his legs trapped in a pool of shadowy mire.
Damn it!
A dark arrow shot straight through his body.
He froze where he stood, motionless. Seconds later, his body crumbled silently into ash.
The darkness lifted.
Collei stepped forward, gazing down at the ashes, her expression cold and conflicted.
The enemy she'd once thought she could never defeat… was this all he amounted to?
Her vengeance, at last fulfilled, left her only with a hollow sigh—and a faint sense of emptiness.
Then, without warning, a tremendous force slammed into her back.
She was hurled against a distant tree. A familiar voice drifted to her ears—
"That was just a segment, little mouse…"
---
That disgusting voice again...
Collei lifted her head and saw, not far away, a white-haired man wearing a mask.
The Doctor?!
Her pupils shrank sharply.
Hadn't she already shot him through the heart? Hadn't his body turned to ashes right before her eyes?
Then why… why was he standing there alive and unscathed?
Collei struggled to push herself up from the ground, glaring at him with a mix of hatred and confusion.
There was no mistake.
This face—she could never forget it.
The man before her was unmistakably The Doctor.
Then what about the one she'd killed earlier?
Was it some kind of substitute ability?
A soft breeze stirred. Collei's green hair fluttered in the wind.
So did the single blue lock at the Doctor's forehead.
Collei froze.
Wait—no.
This wasn't the same one she'd killed.
She remembered clearly—her first arrow had sliced off that exact strand of hair. But now, the man's hair was perfectly intact.
That could only mean one thing: the Doctor she'd slain truly had died.
And the man standing here was another one entirely.
Two Doctors?
Or… was the first one a fake?
But that Doctor had known too much—details of forbidden experiments only the real one could know.
Her thoughts raced.
Then she recalled what he'd said earlier, right before his ambush—
That was just a segment, little mouse...
Segment?
The term wasn't unfamiliar.
Back in the lab, she'd often heard the researchers use it—referring to slicing living tissue or minerals into thin "sections" for study.
Many of the other test subjects she'd once lived alongside had been taken away for "segment analysis."
None of them ever came back.
Could it be… the Doctor she killed earlier was just one of the real Doctor's fragments?
Collei narrowed her eyes. "Are you mocking that segment just now?"
The Doctor glanced at the pile of ashes nearby and smirked. "Of course. To think a little mouse could kill it—pathetic."
Even though this new Doctor looked exactly like the last, Collei could feel subtle differences—the tone of his voice, the arrogance in his posture.
He was even more conceited.
Was that because of the "segment" thing?
So this one might also just be another fragment of the real Doctor.
But how many fragments were there?
The thought made her frown.
If she was right, then killing these copies was meaningless—unless she found and destroyed the true Doctor himself.
He could be in Snezhnaya right now… or hidden deep inside some secret laboratory.
No one could tell them apart—no one but the Doctor himself.
Collei's eyes hardened. "Go ahead and laugh. I'll kill you too, just like your pathetic other self. Then you can join him."
Even if she couldn't tell which was real, it didn't matter.
If she killed them all, she'd be right eventually.
Darkness swallowed the battlefield once more.
The Doctor's mocking voice echoed from within. "Surely you don't think the same trick will work twice?"
Collei saw his figure leap up, easily dodging her Tier-3 Dark Spell—Dark Mire.
Strange.
He hadn't been present during her last battle, yet he moved like someone who knew exactly what had happened.
Was he watching from the shadows the whole time?
Or could these "segments" somehow share their memories?
Expressionless, Collei raised her bow and aimed through the thick Dark Mist that now confined him. A shadowy arrow shimmered into existence on her bowstring.
Then she unleashed another spell—Tier-3 Dark Magic: Curse of Slowness.
The Doctor's movements froze, his speed reduced to a crawl.
Collei released her fingers.
The dark arrow flew, silent as death, piercing through the fog toward its target.
It's over.
----
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