Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 632: The Iron Heart Weighs Heavy - Part 1

A momentʼs calm had just dawned on the city of Athenia, but the queen of Elenaris–the only one not invited to the late-night celebration, sat in her lab fiddling with the insides of Graceʼs body. While everyone else feasted on a roast and ale, her hands were smeared with grease, the burns from pistons and pipes running inside the old Machinaʼs circuitry.

Unlike anyone else, Grace was made with heavy reliance on the mechanical aspects of machinery. Thus, limiting repair and upgrades since nothing from the current time suited the soul-trapping core within. A delicate object, so brittle at this point that it could crumble to a touch, working around something like that was, needless to say, quite frustrating.

Clicking her tongue as another burst of burning air escaped through Graceʼs pistons, Mono cursed her luck and healed her false skin quickly. It wasnʼt the burning that hurt her, but her inability to repair Grace quickly.

”How did you get yourself in such a bad state anyway?!” Mono howled, her eyes shooting daggers at Grace.

Shifting her gaze to her master, the machina responded.

”Because the only person who knew how my body works was asleep for a hundred years or so.”

”Oh, forgive me for being dead, you precious little darling~” Rolling her eyes with a mocking smirk, Mono huffed a chuckle before tension returned to her face. Prodding around inside of Graceʼs abdominal cavity, she scooped leaked oil from the bottom by sucking it through her false skin. Injecting a needle attached to a barrel with a thin pipe, she emptied the liquid by passing it through her skin.

Contorting to the corrosive liquid, her skin burned for a while, but getting it done as quickly as possible, Mono simply healed herself and moved on to the next problem.

ʼThe damned core…ʼ Cracks lined every inch of the structure holding within it a living human heart. The slightest touch could cause it to crumble, making the queen reconsider doing this repair at all.

”Weʼre gonna need more steel dragon scales, but…” Her lips scrunched sideways, Mono wondered what to do next and where to get the scales when all manner of imports were currently banned by the hero. ”Maybe I should talk to him and–”

”Master?”

”Hmm? What?” Glancing up at the machinaʼs face, Mono noticed a strange flickering of Graceʼs eyes. Quickly, she moved over to her head, but before she could ask anything, a hot steam erupted from her pipes. ”Fuck! What now?!”

Sliding her chair to Graceʼs body again, she reached for the broken piston pipe and held the abrasion close with her hands. Like scalding water on the skin, it burned her, and yet creating a film of dark fibres around the injury, Mono closed the wound as quickly as possible. However, even as the piston was secured, she refused to let go as if something else would go wrong in doing so.

”Fuck me…why? Why does everything go wrong with me!?” She screamed to herself, and for some odd reason, Grace decided to answer despite knowing that she shouldnʼt.

”Weʼre not supposed to be alive, not this long.” Lifting her quivering hand from the table, Grace placed it gently on Monoʼs shoulders. ”Our time is gone, master, our souls…they are tired and so am I.”

”Donʼt–” Shrugging Graceʼs hand off of her, Mono shook her head before looking at the machina. ”Donʼt play these games with me, Grace. I know what youʼre trying to do, and no, itʼs not gonna happen.”

Scoffing at her masterʼs response, Grace closed her eyes and decided to sleep for the rest of the repair. In the meantime, Mono still struggled to do anything about the core and since touching it was bound to cause problems, she decided to patch up Grace as much as possible before shutting her body for the moment.

ʼSoul, this soul that, who cares? Weʼre alive and thatʼs what matters.ʼ Sitting in her chair even after being done with the operation, Mono didnʼt realize how much time had passed as she continued to reason with herself. Not a soul in hell could convince her to give up on her daughter, and if the attempt to keep her alive cost her–her sanity, then so be it.

”You know something, Grace?” Taking a deep breath, she turned her head to the resting Machinaʼs face.

Opening her eyes slightly, she lifted her head as if asking her to tell her what she had to say.

”I never thought I could make you, you know?” Taking another breath, Mono moved her hand across her daughterʼs body. In doing so, her mind ventured back into memory. ”When I took that little girlʼs heart to place in your core, it was still pounding and I could feel its convulsions through my very veins.”

”So, thatʼs what kind of heart is in me, a little girlʼs?” Grace asked, as amused as she was surprised by the revelation.

Moving her hand over Grace some more, Mono nodded along to confirm it.

”Who was the girl?” Lifting herself up on the table, Grace sat upright with her eyes focused unblinking on her masterʼs face. ”And why did you choose her out of everyone that you could?”

Monoʼs fingers lifted to the question. Her eyes blankly stared at nothing, and her index finger quivered every other second. She seemed lost in thought as if reliving a memory long past. But then out of nowhere, pulling herself back, she looked into Graceʼs eyes and said.

”She had a hole in her heart, and she begged me to take it from her.” Yet again, her mind was lost in the maze of memories. The sight of the young girl no older than five flashes before her eyes. Hands outstretched, tugging at her skirt to pull her away from her brother, she didnʼt want Mono and Aurora to kill her brother and take his heart. ”Her brother had killed someone, and the king had decreed his death.”

Lifting her head, the queen matched Graceʼs gaze.

”She was gonna die soon, so she thought it was better for her to die than for her brother. Obviously, I didnʼt wanna do it, but back then,, I thought I could save her by moving her to a new body, unfortunately I couldnʼt perfect it until much later so you were born out of her heart instead.”

Staring at the Machina still, her hand gently stroking her body, Mono felt herself slipping further back in memory.

”Master was against the idea so she left the lab in frustration, leaving just me to work on your body. It took me a few months of constant agony to bring you to life. But then it consumed Aurora. Not being the first person to create life from the dying and the dead, it made her resent me.”

Shaking her head, Mono lifted her hand off of Graceʼs body.

”I used part of Auroraʼs ideas, but she was never successful beyond the theoretical. I suppose thatʼs what drew her to hate me so much.”

”From where I see it…” As Grace began speaking, Monoʼs eyes turned sideways to look at her. ”Youʼre turning out no different than her, Aurora, I mean. Bitter and afraid of your own death.”

A heavy silence hung between the two while their eyes remained locked with each other. Mono was no stranger to her own mental problems, but to accept them was a different story entirely.

”As for the girl,” closing her eyes, Grace placed both of her hands crossed on her chest. ”She died the moment you took her heart from her, you did her no favors–if thatʼs what youʼre thinking.”

”I know, Grace…I know.”

Not a moment after their conversation, Mono slumped down in her chair and tried to shut herself down completely. But as fate would have it, she was quickly woken up by the ruckus made by Linkle, whoʼd arrived there to renegotiate the trade between the cities. And had she not come, perhaps that night wouldʼve been the last for the queen and her mechanical daughter, whoʼs to say, really?