Dolls of the Red Zone(Girls Frontline)

Chapter 15 - Bargaining

Ayako's body forced her to remain asleep for an extended period of time, since she was coming up on two days without sleep when she fell asleep originally. It was early the following afternoon before she even awoke, actually feeling well-rested for the first time a while. It was a pleasant feeling, it almost drowned out the lingering feeling of betrayal inside her, she knew she should have continued resisting, for the sake of Griffin as a whole, not just her team. What hurt most still though was the fact she had executed SOP, she still knew it was fake but that feeling inside couldn't be ignored no matter how hard she tried.

She slowly found her way out of bed after thinking for a while, her clothes were dirty, her hair was a mess, but it could be worse at least. She had regained some of her strength, walking was serving to be no problem, but she still was nowhere near fully operational. She was still low on coolant from the stunt she pulled to save Kimiko, and had notable internal damage from blunt-force trauma. She needed repairs very soon if she wanted any chance of getting out of here realistically, but did she even want to do that?

Yes of course she wanted to get out, but would it be the best choice for her team? For SOP? It wasn't, even if she didn't want to admit it, much like she had seen with Kimiko's more controlled OGAS, even she was about to take Kryuger's head off. She wouldn't be able to hold it back completely, especially with Elisa able to order her around.

So she started thinking and came up with a plan, one that chances are, wouldn't end well for her, but it would keep SOP and her team safe, that was integral. She planned to work with SF as Elisa ordered for a while, pick up some trust along the way. Then, once she inevitably came upon her team or AR team, she would cripple herself before Elisa orders her away, allowing herself to be captured. From there the hope was that Persica was capable of putting up some barrier between her and OGAS, she couldn't remove it, but maybe it'd be enough.

The worst part was thinking how SOP would see her, she hates SF unanimously, and in joining SF the way she planned to, she would have to kill Griffin dolls. When she did, the news would eventually get out that she had been converted, no better than any other SF ringleader, even if she doesn't want to be.

Ayako was fine with it, it was her only realistic choice if she wanted SOP's safety, which she did more than anything. She was fine with SOP rejecting her, even trying to kill her, so long as she wasn't dead, that comes before any aspect of their relationship. She longed to eventually be in SOP's embrace, to truly be together with mutual feelings for one another, but that in reality was just extra, non-guaranteed benefits so to speak. The bond system was a cruel mistress, the X-Lab dolls could bond to anyone really, some things effect it, but in the end one of them could bond to a ringleader, nothing was in place to stop that, what then?

She had another idea as well, one that may end this war as well, but it was extremely risky, Elisa had not been joking when she said Ayako's shield was special after all, it was made explicitly to be a be-all end-all weapon. In reality, some of the weight from her shield wasn't from heavily reinforced steel and woven kevlar, but something more sinister. Ayako wasn't originally intended to be a doll with a shield, she was a bartering tool when you get down to it, after all, everything is a lot cheaper when your seller fears for their life. Her shield was a collapse bomb, that's all there was to it, even Persica wouldn't have been willing to accept that, the danger of what she possessed was nearly unrivaled.

Her original intent was to defend not by putting herself between her enemies and her allies, but by ensuring that if the enemy fired, that they would be flattened and left irradiated. Elisa knew about all of this with her words, yet she willingly handed Ayako her shield like it was nothing new, Elisa wasn't the type to underthink things, she must have something against it. But that would of course kill her as well, it needed a very specific situation, one unlikely to arise anytime soon.