Hololive: Reflection

Part Fourteen: The Phantom Thief

"Hehe..." a small pink-haired girl wearing a tiny top hat crawled through the air ducts of a mysterious lab, softly giggling to herself. She looked over at an opening, noticing a boy in blue armor with glasses sitting down and talking to a nearly identical boy with glasses, except the second was opting to wear a lab coat rather than blue armor. She put her head to the vent, curious as to what their conversation was about.

"She still hasn't cracked?" the boy in armor asked, sounding quite surprised, "She's more resilient than we let on."

"It could be because she accepted Cthulhu so quickly," the man in the lab coat speculated, "Her testimony states that she found the book that Cthulhu was sealed in one day in the forest, so she took it and Cthulhu took refuge within her. She was so quick to accept her fate, though, that Cthulhu became a part of her, to the point where she even began to grow tentacles."

"What an odd girl..." the boy in blue thought for a moment, "Although, I'm sure she'll burst when she sees dozens of copies of her little 'art friend' being mass slaughtered right before her eyes."

"Quite," the man in the lab coat nodded, hardly phased by the wild claim made by the other boy, "Speaking of which, the duplication is going well. Soon, we'll have an entire army of Iofifteens."

The girl gasped, quickly covering her mouth as she feared being found out. She recognized the name. Airani Iofifteen, a member of Hololive ID. They were... duplicating her?

"That's good," the blue-armored boy smirked, looking off into the distance, "Ninomae Ina'nis... I feel quite bad for her. It wasn't her choice for Cthulhu to take residence in her body, but I guess fate is often a cruel thing."

"Indeed it is," the boy looked towards the same place that his doppelganger looked towards, "Indeed it is..."

The girl recognized the name as well. Ninomae Ina'nis, a member of Hololive EN. Apparently, she was home to something called "Cthulhu". She decided to continue crawling through the ducts, hoping to find more information. Eventually reaching a small computer room with a lone worker inside, she decided to take a chance and enter. Sneaking through the shadows, she snuck up towards the man, pulling out a small switchblade knife and stabbing him in the back, covering his mouth. Muffled screams went on for a little while, as the girl ripped the knife out of his back. Once the man's breathing stopped, she took a look at the computer. Much to her dismay, however, she realized the computer was blocked with a security system, denying those without access. She scoffed, then began to hear a beeping sound coming from the man's pocket. She grabbed the device, which turned out to be a tracker of some sort. She noticed a small group of four dots coming close to the area. Intrigued, she jumped up to the air ducts again to make her escape and investigate.

...

Nozomi woke up tiredly, rubbing his eyes.

Damn, it's been a while since I slept so well, Nozomi thought.

"You're telling me," Tamashi said, "I haven't slept like that since everything wrong started happening."

You mean with Malice and stuff, right? Nozomi asked, What was it like back then?

"It was quite peaceful, actually, and the world looked fairly similar to your own," Tamashi reminisced fondly, "It was just me, sis, and dad."

Really? Did something happen to mom in your world? Nozomi asked.

"Yeah, she went missing one day," Tamashi replied. Nozomi couldn't tell whether or not he was lying, so he went with it.

Sorry to hear that, man, Nozomi said, You've got a family here though, you know.

"Huh?" Tamashi questioned, somewhat startled, "Wh-what do you mean, a family?"