The rabbit's heartbeat thrummed like a trapped drum. Lupus-0's claws pierced fur—
SNAP-CRUNCH!
Rusted steel teeth sheared through his wrist bone. Not iron—ceramic-composite alloy. Military-grade.
"Bad trap!" Xiao Man scrambled through frost-rimed ferns. Her breath fogged in the predawn cold. "Look—" She jammed a branch into the mechanism. "Rust here... but teeth too sharp."
Lupus-0 snarled, preparing to tear his arm free. Bone fragments ground against the jaws.
"Don't!" She pressed crushed yarrow to the wound. Her fingertips glowed faintly—residual Orphnoch energy from γ-7's blood? "Mommy said this seals wounds."
Warmth spread up his arm. Deeper than flesh—it whispered of sun-drenched meadows, the scent of clover...
His collar discharged. Violet lightning seared nerve clusters mapped as "empathy centers" in Kaine's schematics. He convulsed, biting through his tongue. Black blood foamed on his jaws.
"Why?" Xiao Man clung to his shuddering forearm. "Why does helping you hurt you?"
Memory flash: Kaine tapping a neural diagram.
"See this cluster? We call it the 'compassion tumor'. Cut it out, and soldiers never hesitate."
At dusk, she returned with indigo berries. "Thorn-pearl fruit!" She swallowed one. "Safe." Crushed pulp onto his mangled joint. The pain dissolved—then the collar detonated.
Agony beyond electricity—phantom scalpels sliced his cortex. Through synaptic fire, he saw her tears hit the berries. Where they landed, the fruit pulsed like tiny hearts.
"I'm sorry," she wept. "I just... wanted to fix you."
He realized: Her tears carried γ-7's DNA. The berries absorbed them—becoming medicine tuned to his blood.