They found a tall set of emergency stairs on the far side of the ship. At its base was a collection of emergency rescue boats for the human element of Izuku’s forces. Though many of the boats were gone, two still remained. As the trudge of descending so many stairs began, Aryu looked behind him to see that Crystal was no longer following them.
“Wait!” he called to the leading two. “Where’s Crystal?” They looked back in confusion until they realized she wasn’t there. A quick trip back up to the top showed them she was nowhere to be found.
“Son of a bitch!” Nixon cried. “Why would she run off? We need t’ protect her!”
“Maybe she wasn’t fully healed yet? Maybe that Est Vacuus thing took more out of her than she said.”
Nixon wheeled on Aryu. “The wha’?”
Aryu was so caught up in finding them and planning the next move, he hadn’t told them all the details about the meeting with Izuku. “The sword Izuku had, it was a part of the Est Vacuus.”
“No,” Nixon said at once, eyes blazing, “nothin’ 'ere can be a part o' the Est Vacuus. It goes against everythin’ the Est Vacuus is! Wha' 'appened, Aryu? Tell me everythin'!”
He did, explaining her madness, the blow to Izuku and what it had done, and how the feeling was lost on him and seemingly Izuku as well. When he was done, Nixon was beside himself in anger. Even the typically reserved Sho was showing signs of disbelief.
“What?” asked Aryu. “What do you know that I seem to be missing?” He got no answer, not really a surprise considering his company wasn’t known for volunteering anything and assuming everyone knew everything. A very annoying trait in a time like this.
“Tha’ bitch!” Nixon called out, fury overtaking him as the smoke began to rise again from his massive body. “I swear to my Lord God, Crystal! You will suffer for this!”
Nixon screamed like an animal, loud enough to make the skies tremble, the earth quake, and the seas boil. They had been fooled somehow and he, the only one left with any kind of Power, had not seen it. So blinded was he by finding her and selfishly looking for the answers to his own problems that he hadn’t seen the truth.
Crystal had betrayed them.
-----------------------
Crystal, long gone from where the other three were, heard the scream of anger and rage. The sound ripped through her like a knife, but she pressed on. She had to. She had to get away quickly before Nixon tore this place apart trying to find her. Even now she believed escape was not likely if Nixon really set his mind to finding her, but that was a risk she had to take.
She hadn’t betrayed them. Not really, anyway. Betrayal implies that she allowed vital information about them to get into the wrong hands for the purposes of undermining them. She had not done this. Only their little party knew the master plan. No one knew that Nixon still had control of his considerable powers. No one knew anything other than the basics, and she wasn’t about to tell. That wasn’t part of her plan. A plan so grand in its scope that she was at once proud and ashamed of its magnificence.
It was a plan worthy of Ryu.
She both was and wasn’t sorry for what she’d done. She knew the truth was bound to escape at some point and now was the latest possible time she could have left and kept her plan safe. Crystal had played every side with the perfection of a true artist. Now they would go on to the final goal, and when that was done, every piece she put into play would come together and she would have what she wanted.
She made it to a waiting escape ladder and small jet boat at its base. Soon, she would be gone and even Nixon with his God-given abilities couldn’t find her. His preordained mission to destroy the sword-bearer would block his ability to catch her unless she allowed it, and considering she currently had no actual powers to track (admittedly, this was not part of the original plan, and it was a situation she would attempt to rectify very shortly), she would slip away easily. If he hadn’t begun the chase by now, he wouldn’t at all.
He didn’t know the truth. She never let that happen. It was so obvious yet so far from his mind that it blinded him. Of course she knew why he was sent to kill a young, powerless mortal man, but she had kept things flowing so well that he never asked. She knew why it was that Aryu had the sword. She knew his history, that of his parents and where he came from. She knew every who, what, where, when, why, and how, and Nixon was a fool for not assuming it was so. Izuku may be the oldest person alive, but she was still Crystal Kokuou, and that fact alone meant that she was still likely the most intelligent and dangerous person who had ever lived. Even Ryu proved in his final moments that he couldn’t be as strong as she was. Or as smart. She loved him very much, but good god was he impulsively melodramatic.
Seated in the small jet boat, she set off for the mainland at top speed. She had escaped the wrath of the phoenix for now, and it was time to begin the last and most difficult part of the
