Chapter 300: Just Like You Did
Cassandra had bought Deadmaw as Raze’s reward for killing Ashy. He had later used the sword to kill Victoria while the project continued behind him.
Martin felt no satisfaction in the way it had come back around. Ashy and Nyxshade were still gone, and Kumoe had almost joined them.
Katherine studied Cassandra in silence before asking, "Did you see whether they completed the transfer?"
"I saw enough to know the method worked, but my death screen opened before I could confirm whether the slate and ampoule finished sealing. I also don’t know what Crucible Concord’s investigators recovered after Just Die fled. Until we prove otherwise, we have to assume Raze escaped with a working copy of the maximum-bond recognition formula."
"How quickly can they use it again?" Martin asked.
"I can’t give you a reliable estimate. If Raze has both items, the slate preserves the ratios, sequence, and reaction timings, while the ampoule holds the successful sample. They still need more live-bond blood and high-density blue catalyst. Finding those materials may slow them down, but it won’t stop them."
Nothing in that list sounded impossible for a guild willing to hunt bonded beasts. "So any bonded beast could become a target."
"Yes. The formula still needs an eligible player, and that player must choose to complete the sacrifice event. That final choice also gives Just Die cover because no one outside the guild may know who used the formula until another Beastslayer appears."
Martin remembered NineLivesLeft’s hook reaching for Kumoe’s throat. If Just Die could repeat the method, Kumoe would not be the last bonded beast they hunted.
"What can you still give us?" Katherine asked.
"Every record I have from Victoria. That includes payments, sponsor permissions, officers, suppliers, and every route or facility named in the reports Just Die sent before I lost access. I know nothing about the Dark Side locations they unlocked after Raze took over, and he has probably replaced the legitimate accounts I funded."
Martin cut in before Cassandra could move on. "Rias needs all of it, including the original records. Don’t give her a summary."
"She’ll have everything. I’ll send the same files to the Crucible Concord investigators who weren’t involved in the laboratory. Anything I add from memory will be labeled as my explanation instead of presented as fact. Rias can decide what helps her investigation, and Crucible Concord can verify the rest without trusting my judgment."
Katherine nodded once. "Other academies and bonded-beast players need to be warned too."
"I’ll go through official channels and give them enough to understand the danger without releasing details that could help someone rebuild the formula. Until every copy is recovered or destroyed, we have to treat the method as active."
The records gave them a place to start. Cassandra still spoke with the control she brought to guild meetings, although she had finally stopped deciding who was allowed to examine her work and reach their own conclusions.
Katherine waited until Cassandra finished. "Rias can handle the records. Alexandra and Elisebeth need to hear what happened from you, in your own words. Will you stay and answer them even if they’re furious?"
Cassandra did not promise immediately. Her fingers curled into her palms as she looked from Katherine to Martin.
"If they’re still willing to speak with me, I will. I won’t leave when the questions begin."
"They are," Martin said. "Alexandra said that if you expected her to hate you, you could stay long enough to find out whether you were right."
Cassandra needed several seconds before she could say, "Then I’ll stay."
Martin leaned back, though the decision had not eased the tightness in his chest. "What happens to Night Espresso now?"
"The real-world company still exists, and your shares remain yours. The old guild charter is gone. If all of you rebuild under the Night Espresso name, the people expected to trust it must have a say in how it is led. My Condemned account can’t be formally attached if that would bring back the association penalties that forced the old guild to disband."
"You’re really going to let the rest of us choose what happens to it?"
"I gave up the right to make that decision alone. Night Espresso’s future will wait until all of you have the full truth and time to decide. If the others want a new name, I won’t use my ownership of the company to preserve the old one."
Martin cared what happened to the guild, but another question had been waiting beneath the practical ones. He needed to know whether anything they had built had been real to her.
"Did Night Espresso ever become more than the respectable half of your plan?"
"Yes. It became the place I wanted to return to whenever I logged in. By then, I had already created Just Die and ordered Ashy’s death. The more Night Espresso mattered to me, the harder it became to admit what I had done to build the other side."
Martin shook his head. "That made it harder for you to tell us. It didn’t make the lie easier on anyone else."
"No. It only gave me another reason to avoid what I had done."
She had confessed and given them a plan for the immediate danger, yet Martin still did not know whether anything remained between them.
"I’m still angry," he said. "The explanation doesn’t change that."
"I didn’t expect it to."
"Alexandra deserves to hear this from you. I can’t forgive you on Ashy’s behalf, and I can’t decide what Kumoe nearly dying should mean to her."
"I know. I won’t ask you to."
She offered no qualification or defense. Martin still had to force out the next sentence.
"I don’t know whether I can trust you again either. You promised there wouldn’t be another wall, then built a bigger one and told us to continue without you."
Cassandra pressed her lips together before answering. "I believed leaving was the least harmful choice I could make."
"You made that choice for us."
"I didn’t know what I had any right to ask of you after you learned the truth. I thought staying would force you to..." Cassandra stopped, unable to finish.
Martin waited, but she did not try again.
"You didn’t have to ask me to forgive you," he said. "You only had to stop choosing my answer."
"I was afraid your answer would be to leave."
"It still might be, but it has to be mine."
Cassandra looked down at her hands. When she finally spoke, the practiced steadiness had left her voice. "Why did you come, Martin?"
"Because I needed the truth." He held her gaze. "And because being angry with you didn’t make me stop caring about you."
Katherine remained quiet while Martin thought of Angel, still safe in her pocket dimension as he sat here in the real world. Cassandra had called it only a game, but he had kept Angel away throughout the Mountain Risen investigation because bringing her anywhere near Just Die was too dangerous. The choice made sense, although the game had felt emptier without her beside him.
"Before this game, I came home to a tiny studio and more client work," he said. "Most days, I ate, slept, and started over. I wanted one win because I was tired of feeling like I didn’t matter anywhere."
"Then I found Angel. Her egg was nearly as large as I was, but when she hatched, she fit in my palm. I fed her, let her ride on my head, and watched her rush into trouble whenever she thought she could help me."
Despite everything, the memory almost made him smile. Angel had splashed him, proudly circled every new treasure, and demanded food as though his entire reason for entering the game was to keep her fed. None of it had ever felt like a collection of game mechanics.
"Having her with me was fun," he continued. "Even when I went somewhere without the party, I wasn’t really alone. Angel was either beside me or waiting inside her pocket dimension. The game stopped feeling like another empty place I visited after work."
Martin looked down at his hands. He had no idea how to say the rest without sounding stupid, but that felt like one more excuse to stop.
"I don’t know whether NPCs and beasts are alive in the same way we are. I don’t need that answer to know Angel matters to me. Taking care of her made me feel needed in a way I never had before."
He raised his head and looked at Cassandra again.
"She made me feel complete."
Cassandra’s crimson eyes met his.
"Just like you did."
Cassandra tried to answer, but no sound came. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it away at once, only for another to follow before she could regain control.
She drew in a breath that caught halfway, then covered her face as her shoulders began to shake.