Part 15

As the elevator sped down towards the base, Shirabe stared out of the window and Kirika reached out to her. The former instinctively jerked away from her before turning to face her. "I'm not going to help you with whatever you want me to do, you know," she started to say and Tsubasa sighed at her words.

"We know. You're going to run off to rescue Maria and Serena," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "You can do that, if you know where they're being held in the base."

Shirabe stared at her for a while before folding her arms angrily in defeat and turning around to look outside the elevator. Tsubasa did the same, staring out the opposite end, leaving Kirika to stare at the two of them for a moment before she threw her hands up in defeat and turn to Shirabe. "If you want, you can help you look for Maria and Serena," she offered, causing Shirabe to stare at her.

"And you don't know where the holding cells are either, Akatsuki," Tsubasa pointed out to her, making Kirika flush in embarrassment.

"So you expect us to do as you tell us?" Shirabe snapped back and Tsubasa nodded.

"Even if you're very obviously going to go and rescue Kanade first?" she quickly retaliated and this time, a cold smile appeared on Tsubasa's face.

"You are going to do exactly as I tell you to if you want to rescue Maria and Serena before whatever is going on in this base kills them or anyone else in here. Understand?" she said, her voice still as calm as it was but this time laced with a threatening undertone to it.

Shirabe raised her fist but Kirika took her hand and held it tightly. "Not now," she said to her. "We don't want to fight each other especially with what's going on right now."

The dark-haired girl simply looked away and Tsubasa did the same while Kirika looked at the both of them helplessly before she let out an angry shout and pointed at Tsubasa. "Can you just explain to us what your plan is? Besides you trying to rescue Kanade? We already don't know what's going on down there and you definitely have a plan, so just tell us what it is."

Tsubasa glanced at Shirabe who still looked rather angry and she let out a sigh of defeat. "Fine. We're going into the hangar right now to get our Gears before we head into the base proper. We split up and you can use your suit's UI to find where the holding cells are," she said and Kirika stared at Tsubasa in surprise.

"Wait, they fixed my Gear as well?"

"Yes. We are short of personnel, remember? Grandfather was going to get his candidate into the team regardless so the maintenance team was tasked on restoring your Gear and refitting it so that it did not look as shabby as it used to be," she explained and Kirika turned to Shirabe with a huge grin on her face.

"You hear that, Shirabe?" she asked and the other girl sighed as well, relaxing immensely like a great burden had partially lifted from her shoulders.

"See," Kirika said to Tsubasa. "Maybe you should tell us what your plan is instead of keeping everything in the dark and trying to act all cool like that."

"Sorry," Tsubasa said with a frustrated sigh as she leaned against the elevator. "I was more afraid that Tsukuyomi here would rush out and get everyone killed if she were too excited."

"If I were Kirika, then yes. But I'm not so you don't have to worry," the younger girl responded almost immediately and Kirika gave her an indignant glare as the two of them chuckled at the blonde girl's reaction.

At least they're getting along better now, she thought grumpily as the elevator slowed down and came to a stop. Tsubasa frowned at the sight and peered out of the elevator, before saying, "We're too high up. There's still another kilometer left to go before we reach the hangar."

"Are we going to have to climb down?" Kirika asked, looking fearfully into the abyss below them and Tsubasa nodded her head.

"Or we could just parachute down. It's a lot faster that way," Shirabe said, holding up a pendant. "Just don't touch me or else we'd go splat," she glanced at Kirika who nodded her head rapidly. Tsubasa nodded and opened the elevator's hatch before climbing out.

The three of them stared into the elevator shaft around them, a soft wind blowing and Kirika shivered again. Tsubasa stood between the two of them and took their hands, nodding at Shirabe so that she could get started. As the dark-haired girl started to focus, Kirika looked around for a moment and paused to stare at a strange looking shape on the mural.

"That looks like a door, doesn't it?" she said aloud a moment before Shirabe indicated that they should run.

"Eh?" she said in disbelief before she was dragged along and they jumped off the elevator, a scream escaping her mouth as they free-fall towards the bottom of the shaft. After falling for a good distance, they could see the bottom, thanks to the lights in the shafts and Shirabe gestured with her free-hand, creating a parachute from her back.

Their fall began to slow down and Kirika let out a sigh of relief as they drifted down to the ground. Once their feet touched terra firma, Kirika's knees gave way and she collapsed to the ground, shivering for a moment before Tsubasa knelt down, helping her to stand once more.

"Don't lose your nerve," she said before climbing up to the elevator entrance and forcing it open with an emergency crowbar located next to the door. Tsubasa stepped out first, looking around the hangar carefully. Nobody was around and Tsubasa frowned at the sight as she moved out quietly first. Kirika and Shirabe waited for a moment until she gestured at them to follow her.

The three of them walked out into the hangar, looking around for a while before Tsubasa gestured at the bays where their Gears are normally stored. Kirika nodded and headed over to her bay while Shirabe followed her. A moment later, her Gear was revealed and Kirika grinned, noting how it had been properly repaired and given a fresh coat of paint as well.

"Hurry up and get into your suit," Shirabe hissed at her and Kirika rolled her eyes before doing so, climbing into her Gear and sealing herself in it. She allowed herself a moment to attune herself to the darkness of her suit before singing her activation phrase.

A moment later, her heart responded and the Gear hummed to life, the UI flickering open and the familiar AI voice greeting her. "Welcome back, Akatsuki Kirika, Death!" it said and she saluted it, ignoring Shirabe's incredulous look as she ran through her suit's configuration to see what has been changed.

To her surprise, nothing was changed at all, despite the new coat of paint and she mentioned to Tsubasa who had just finished activating her Gear. "Well, no. They never got around to putting in all of the changes they wanted to make, from the looks of it. Aren't you glad?" Tsubasa said and Kirika puffed up her cheeks in annoyance.

Shirabe looked at the two Gears as they gestured at each other before she sighed and changed into her Phantom Thief outfit. "Do the two of you have a speaker built into those suits yet? It's hard to communicate like this, you know," she complained to the both of them.

Kirika glanced at Tsubasa who shook her head and the latter said, "Yeah, that's pretty low on the priority list. You only need to communicate with other agents through the radio, they said." The younger girl thought about this for a moment before an idea flashed in her head and she searched through her Gear's UI. There is an option there, she thought and she selected the option.

To everyone's surprise, Shirabe's phone began to ring and she answered it. "Great!" Kirika said when Shirabe answered and the dark-haired girl rolled her eyes, even if she did look amused by Kirika's solution to the problem. "Now we can talk to each other!"

The Phantom Thief conjured up a set of headphones and plugged it into her phone before giving Kirika a thumbs up as Tsubasa said, "Alright. I'm going to get Kanade now while you two look for Maria and Serena. Once we're done, contact the other side and we'll meet up at this point." A map flashed on Kirika's UI, indicating the meeting point and she nodded to Tsubasa.

Tsubasa nodded back before turning and making her way towards the sick bay while Shirabe looked at Kirika. "Well?" she said, tapping her feet impatiently and Kirika ran a quick search on her UI, looking for the holding area. It turned out to be three floors below them and she mentioned this to Shirabe who nodded and followed Kirika as she lead the way to the nearest elevator.

***

"Where's everyone?" Kirika murmured to herself as they came to the elevator and she pressed the button to call it. In their time here, she had not yet seen a single staff or agent and the lack of people was starting to unnerve her. Even Shirabe seemed a little unsettled by this and she glanced at Kirika.

"For a base this large, it's weird that we haven't run into anyone yet," she said and Kirika glanced at her.

"Do you think they're all dead?" she asked fearfully and Shirabe shot an angry glare at her.

"They're not," she snapped before taking a deep breath to calm herself. "They're not dead yet. At least, there doesn't seem to be any kind of struggle here so no one was fighting anything," she explained to Kirika who felt a little relieved by her words.

"Wait...what if a Noise appeared here?" she asked a moment later. "They turned people to dust right?"

"Well, there should still be signs of fighting and we haven't seen any ash on the ground. So something else happened," she said as the elevator chimed and the door opened, revealing the white-pink Phantom Thief who stepped out to greet them.

"Whoa...looks like one of them got out," Kirika said cheerfully as she reached out to the girl. Shirabe's eyes narrowed and she stepped in front of Kirika, blocking her way.

"Who are you?" she demanded, surprising Kirika who stared at her. "You look just like Serena but you're definitely not her at all." The Thief smirked and raised her rod to fire a beam at the two of them. Shirabe was prepared though and she raised her hand, creating a barrier to deflect the blast instead.

"Wait what?" Kirika spluttered in surprise as she pulled out her staff from its holding place and held it in front of her.

Shirabe shot a glare at the white-pink Thief and said, "That's not Serena. She looks pretty close to her but her attack motif is not correct and she does not trigger my anti anti-recognition effect at all."

"Eh?"

"She's a fake who doesn't trigger my powers alarm bells," Shirabe said as she hurled her yo-yos at the false Serena who darted away easily enough and fired another bolt of energy at them. Kirika dodged the attack but the Thief chose to attack her instead, darting up close and raising her rod to attack. A blade sprang out from the rod's tip and Kirika yelped, raising her staff to parry the strike.

"Don't just defend yourself! Fight her!" Shirabe urged as she bladed behind the Thief and swung her yo-yos at her back, knocking her away from Kirika. The latter responded by swinging her staff and batting Serena away as hard as she can, slamming her head first into a nearby wall.

There was an audible crack and Serena fell to the ground, her neck clearly broken from the impact and Kirika let out a gasp of shock, petrified at the thought of killing the impostor. Her shock turned into a different kind of shock however as the false Serena stood up, readjusting her neck so that it was properly positioned once more.

"Nice try," the fake said, cracking her neck once as she turned to face them, a cruel smile on her face. "You're going to have to do better than that if you want to beat me."

"Okay," Shirabe said in agreement a second before she flung her yo-yos at Serena. The Thief blasted them out of the air with ease as Shirabe roller-bladed over to her, swinging another yo-yo at her and forcing her onto the defensive. Kirika watched the fight for a moment before taking the chance to warn Tsubasa over the radio about the situation and leaping into the fray.

Kirika and Shirabe exchanged blows with Serena for a while, the latter easily defending each strike with ease as she moved about in a way that no ordinary human could. Her limbs twisted about at impossible angles to parry blows from both girls and she let out a manic laugh every so often, sounding very much like a blood-crazed hyena.

With a wide swing of her rod, Serena knocked both girls away from her and twirled her rod once before pointing it at them. "Bye bye," she said cheerfully and fired a beam at them. Hurriedly, Shirabe erected a barrier in front of them, barely deflecting the blow and Kirika lunged at Serena as soon as the barrier had died down.

She swung her staff at the false Serena's head and the latter barely managed to block the blow with her rod. The force of her swing knocked the rod out of her hands however and Serena somersaulted away in order to avoid another attack from Kirika.

A second before she landed however, Shirabe had conjured up two more yo-yos and flung them at Serena, entangling her arms and legs. She fell down to the ground in a crumpled heap and Kirika pounced at her, holding her staff at the tip of her throat.

Serena gave her a wicked smile as she relaxed herself and said, "Alright. I give up. You got me." For some reason, that caused Kirika to shiver a little as Shirabe bladed over to the false Serena and glared down at her.

"Who are you? What are you?" she asked and Serena's smile widened, reaching Glasgow-like proportions.

"What? Can't you recognize me, Shirabe-chan?" she said in a mocking manner. "I'm your older sister Serena, come here to greet you after having escaped the horrible tortures that was inflicted on me by the brutal 2nd Division agents. Or did this Gear over here take over as your most beloved person?"

Shirabe closed her eyes for a moment as if to calm herself before lashing out with an energy yo-yo, cracking Serena's head open. Kirika let out a loud gasp and almost reached out to stop Shirabe, stopping herself when she remembered that doing so would weaken her classmate.

For a moment, there was silence, only to be broken by Serena making an exaggerated weeping sound. "That hurts so much, Shirabe-chan! Why are you being so mean to me?" she said in a mocking manner before she burst out into maniacal laughter. "Oh...just kill me and get on with whatever it is that you are trying to do, will you?" she said, still laughing out loud.

"Not before you answer some questions of ours," Shirabe said and placed her foot on Serena's throat who continued to laugh maniacally, seemingly not caring about the fact that she was being stepped on like that.

"Like what? I already told you, I'm Serena Kovalchuk, your older, adopted sister. Oh, you mean what I am? Here, I'll tell you," she said, gesturing at Shirabe to come closer. The latter refused to do so however and Serena made a pouting expression.

"Oh fine. Maybe Shirabe will tell you instead, Shirabe," she said and Kirika blinked before she looked up and saw an exact duplicate of Shirabe roller-blading up to her. As the second Shirabe body-checked her, Kirika noticed that there was an impact imprint on her body, making her remember the earlier fight she had in the base.

She was flung back as the newcomer attacked her Shirabe, forcing her to back away and allowing Serena to get back up onto the feet after she snapped the strings holding her down. "Oh, thank you so much, my Shirabe," she said, hugging the newcomer tightly as Kirika got back up to her feet.

Kirika gaped at the sight before turning to her Shirabe and saying, "What's going on here?"

"That's what I'd like to know myself. Someone made duplicates of me and my sisters and not only that, they know exactly who we are too," she said softly as the two impostors got ready to fight once more. "We should take them out now so that they don't bother us later."

Kirika shook her head and glanced at her UI, switching the route that she was planning to take. "Let's leave now and get the real Maria and Serena out. We'd stand a better chance if we can get to them first," she said just before Shirabe dropped down into a charging stance.

"What?"

"You heard me. We go to Maria and Serena, get them out so that they can fight with us," she said and Shirabe glared at her for a moment before hurling her yo-yos at the two impostors, causing an explosion to occur.

"Let's go!" she said and Kirika lead the way, running as quickly as she could so that they could leave the other Shirabe and Serena behind.

***

As they ran, Kirika's radio crackled and Tsubasa spoke up. "Akatsuki, good news. I've found a few of the staff members hiding in the medical bay along with Kanade," she said, sounding extremely relieved and Kirika let out a sigh of relief herself.

"Have you seen the third impostor. Thief yet?" she asked, pausing for a moment to look over her shoulder. It appeared as if they were not being followed at this point, she noted as Shirabe screeched to a halt and stared at her.

"Third Thief? What..." Tsubasa started to say before she let out a startled yelp and Kirika heard the sounds of metal clashing metal. "Oh, this is the one that you're talking about," she said wryly and Kirika sighed before she resumed running.

After a few minutes of running, they arrived at the holding area and Kirika looked around cautiously. The area was empty, devoid of people and she gave Shirabe a worried look. "I hope they're here and safe," she said and Shirabe nodded.

They walked around for a while before they came across a vault door, similar to the one that they found in Ryoko's mansion. "Do you suppose that Maria and Serena are behind this door?" Kirika asked Shirabe and the latter looked at Kirika with a grin.

"There's only one way to find out," she said, reaching out to take Kirika's hand but the latter pulled away.

"We can't do that yet," Kirika said and looked around for something that could be used to open the door. There was a computer nearby and she went to it, hooking her Gear up to it. It didn't take her Gear's AI long to bypass the door's security system and it clicked loudly.

Shirabe darted inside as the door swung open. "Maria? Shirabe?" she called out desperately as Kirika went to the door to peer inside the brightly lit room. Indeed, she saw two semi-conscious girls lying in the center of the room and she went in to check on them as did Shirabe.

Kirika let out a sigh of relief when she noted that the two girls in there were Maria and Serena, as they had hoped. At the moment, the two of them looked rather haggard and tired, like they had been deprived of sleep for a long while. Her classmate called out to them desperately, trying to shake them awake and Kirika said, "Come on. Let's get them out of here."

The other girl took a deep breath and quickly frisked both her adopted sister before saying, "Wait. We have to find their pendants first. Otherwise they can't transform and they can't help us." Kirika nodded and helped the two of them out first before reconnecting into the computer that she had plugged into earlier.

"It says that the pendants are kept in Kazanari Fudo's safe inside his office," she announced a moment later and Shirabe stared at her in surprise.

"Why?"

"How should I know?" Kirika replied as she disconnected from the computer. "Maybe he wanted to look after it on his own? Maybe he's just really paranoid?"

"Or maybe that's just old news and we've already found the pendants," another voice said and Kirika turned to look as the two impostor. Thieves they were fighting earlier arrived at their location. Shirabe gritted her teeth in anger and carefully set Maria aside while Kirika did the same with Serena.

The impostor. Serena pulled out two crystal pendants from her skirt and held them in her hand, wagging her finger at Shirabe and Kirika as the latter two cautiously approached them. "Now, now. Don't do anything stupid or else I might just have to toss these things away," she said, flipping her rod up and pointing it at the crystals.

"Do your worst," Shirabe said defiantly. "It's not like you can smash the crystals in the first place."

"Oh. You caught me in my bluff," Serena replied cheerfully as the impostor. Shirabe lunged forward, swinging her yo-yos at the real Shirabe. As the two of them battled, Kirika pulled out her staff and approached Serena carefully, watching her for any form of trickery.

"Ah. The strong, silent type," she said cheerfully as she placed the crystals back into her skirt. "You'd look like the fun type to play with. Or not," she said a second before she flipped her rod and fired a beam at Kirika who dodged to the left and charged at Serena, swinging her staff at her feet.

"No, no. You're supposed to try a different trick this time," Serena scolded her as she jumped up into the air, avoiding the attack. Her rod flared brightly, dazzling Kirika and she stepped back, surprised by the flash of light. Thus, she was unable to defend herself when Serena fired a beam at her, knocking her against the wall.

Kirika let out a groan of pain as her vision slowly returned and she got up, just in time to be knocked down a second time as Serena charged in, kicking her hard on her head. The impact rocked her entire Gear and her AI let out a warning screech as she collapsed to the ground.

"What..." she murmured as she peered about in a dazed state as Serena aimed her rod directly at her face.

"Bye bye," she uttered, blowing her a kiss and as if in slow motion, Kirika's arm darted out, grabbing the rod and forcing it up just before it fired. The beam glanced against her hear down, searing bits of her helmet off instead.

She let out a loud grunt as she pulled herself up using the rod and Serena struggled to pull it out of Kirika's grasp. "Uh oh," the latter said as Kirika raised her other fist and she released her rod, jumping away before the punch could land. Kirika smirked to herself as she dropped the rod and casually crushed it, creating a sharp ozone smell underfoot.

Glancing down, she saw that the rod was some sort of electronic device but before she could get a closer look, Serena charged at her, flailing at her with her fists and feet. While each blow certainly had weight and impact to them, it was clear to Kirika that she was not particularly skilled at hand-to-hand combat, judging from the way she clumsily struck at her.

Grinning to herself, she waited for Serena to kick at her and when she did, Kirika grabbed her leg, swinging her hard into a wall. A small impact crater formed where the Phantom Thief have struck the wall and she fell to the ground, her body bent in a ninety degree angle.

Despite this, Kirika slammed her head with her staff as hard as she could, remembering what had happened earlier and Serena rolled away after the third strike, her neck twisted so that her head was leaning against her shoulder. Kirika shuddered at the sight; she should be dead but she was still fine as she twisted her head back into position.

"Okay, that really hurt, you know," Serena said as she forced her body to straighten itself. "I really should stop playing nice with you." To Kirika's surprise, her hands slipped into her arms and two long blades slid out before she rushed at Kirika, slashing and stabbing at her.

"Okay...definitely a robot of some kind," Kirika said out loud and her radio crackled once.

"Oh, that explains a lot," Tsubasa said and Kirika can still hear the sounds of fighting on her end. "She just took a sword through her throat and she not only kept fighting, she keeps talking as well. She's almost as bad as Maria is sometimes."

"Well you are fighting Maria. Or at least Maria's double," Kirika replied, dodging a sword slash from Serena before she jabbed her staff at her in response. Serena danced away from her before leaping forward and spinning around like a top, her blade clashing multiple times against her staff.

"Figures that this one is Maria," her senior replied in a wry manner. "Still, she's good but not as good as the original is," she said and Kirika heard something akin to a muted cry of pain over the radio. For some reason, she felt encouraged by that and as Serena lunged at her again, she lowered her staff, letting her draw closer.

The move surprised Serena and at the last moment, Kirika reached out, grabbing her wrists and using the weight of her Gear, she crushed her wrists, snapping off the blades in an instant. "What..." Serena started to say before Kirika kicked her away from her and into the same wall she had slammed her into.

A calmness enveloped Kirika's mind and she focused her energy onto her staff, creating an energy scythe once more. As Serena staggered up to her feet, Kirika shifted her stance, preparing to make her strike. The impostor. glanced at her and grinned at her.

"Come on. Do your worst," she said in a taunting manner. "Do you really think that you can destroy someone who looks just like your friend's sister?"

"Actually, you're just a robot," Kirika said to herself before she charged at her. Serena raised her broken arms in order to stop the blow but Kirika's blade cleaved through her arms easily enough and as the limbs fell, Kirika could see that Serena's innards was full of clockwork machinery.

"Oh. Guess you can do it. You're a lot colder than you let on," Serena said cheerily a moment before Kirika swung her scythe again and cleaved her head from her neck.

As her head fell to the ground, Kirika heard an exploding sound over her radio and instinctively, she yelled a warning to Shirabe before running towards the real Maria and Serena, covering them a split second before the impostor. Serena's body exploded.

***

The ringing in her ears died down after a while and when Kirika opened her eyes once more, she saw that both Maria and Serena were staring up at her, giving her a surprised look. She moved away from them, tilting her head apologetically before turning to look at Shirabe to see how she was faring.

As it turned out, she was doing well, slowly gaining the upper hand over her duplicate. The real Maria and Serena stood by her side, staring in shocked disbelief as they watched the two Shirabe battle each other and the older sister said, "What's going on here?"

Kirika was about to explain when she remembered that she can't talk to them and then she remembered the crystals that were still inside the impostor. Serena's skirt. Desperately, she looked around for them before seeing the crystals glinting on the ground, looking unharmed from the explosion.

She let out a sigh of relief as she went to pick up the crystals, handing them over to Maria and Serena. They looked at Kirika suspiciously for a moment before glancing at each other and then Shirabe as she battled her duplicate before Serena bowed to Kirika.

"Thank you for your help," she said and Maria did likewise before the two of them changed into their Phantom Thieves outfits and rushed to Shirabe's side. With the three Phantom Thieves together at last, Kirika watched as they easily defeated the final impostor., restraining her so that a third explosion did not occur.

After the fight was over and the final Thief was properly restrained, Shirabe paused for a moment to stare at Maria and Serena, both of whom gave her a warm smile and Kirika watched as the dark-haired girl broke down into tears and rushed into their arms, hugging them tightly.

"I'm sorry! I really wanted to come and get you out earlier but Fine told me that I should go out and look for whoever it was that was causing trouble between us and the 2nd Division and so we've been looking and looking but we couldn't find anything but now you're safe and I'm just so glad!" she said rapidly and Serena patted her head soothingly while Maria simply smiled and whispered something to her.

Standing silently at the side, Kirika just watched the three girls comfort each other for a moment before Serena turned towards her and gave her a bow. "Thank you for helping us there. You're...Akatsuki-san right?" she asked and Kirika nodded her head, asking Shirabe if the three Thieves knew who she was.

"We suspected," she reminded her. "But as it turned out, we were right all along," she continued as Maria and Serena stared at her questioningly. She smiled a little and explained to them how she was communicating with Kirika. The two older Thieves nodded at her explanation before they bowed once more to Kirika.

"Again, thank you for helping us out. The problem right now is...we don't know who these impostors are. But I think this one can explain it to us," Maria said before she turned to face the impostor. Shirabe who was struggling to break free of her bonds. "You'll tell us, won't you?" she asked, kneeling down by the impostor. and giving her an icy glare.

The impostor. looked at the four girls for a moment before she sighed and said, "I could tell you information but you cannot do anything with it. In fact, it will only serve to bring you great suffering and misery."

"That's for us to decide," Maria replied immediately before clearing her throat and asking, "Who are you and why are you doing this?" Kirika took this chance to switch her radio's sharing mode on, so that Tsubasa can listen in on the interrogation.

"We are Dolls, sent here to capture your base in preparation for Kadingir's reveal to the world," she replied after a moment's consideration and the four girls stare at each other in confusion.

"So you're robots that are called Dolls?" Maria asked cautiously and the impostor. stared at her for a moment.

"If by robots, you mean artificial life that was created using Antikythera mechanism and given life via the Aqua Vitae, then yes, we're robots," she said in a condescending manner. "Instead of modern science, alchemy was used to create us, so our creator prefer to call us Dolls instead."

"Okay...that's getting kinda weird..." Kirika muttered to herself and Shirabe nodded her head in response.

Maria cleared her throat and said, "What's Kadingir? What is so important about its reveal that you have to do all this?"

"Kadingir is that which will free us from the curse that the Custodians have set upon us since ancient times. If you really care about humanity, then you should stand back and allow us this opportunity so that we can free everyone from the shackles that binds us."

"What are you talking about?" Maria said in frustration and the Doll smiled at her.

"I'm saying that you should give up for the sake of a better future. What you are trying to do will only doom the world and its inhabitants to thousands of years of misery and suffering," she continued as her eyes started to flash with a strange passion.

The four girls look at each other in confusion and the Doll sneered at them in response. "See? You do not know the truth of your species. Free me and let me do my creator's bidding so that the world can become a better place. You have our word on it," she said.

"What about the people you killed to get to this stage of your mission? Don't they deserve a better future as well?" Serena asked and the Doll smiled, this time an innocent one that was at odds with her previous statements.

"Of course. But unfortunately, they are the stepping stones that we need to cast in front of us to get to a brighter future. The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few after all. If the sacrifice of hundreds will serve the betterment of billions, is that not the path that we should be taking?"

Shirabe slapped her own forehead in disbelief at the words coming out of her doppelganger and said, "Can we get rid of her now? She's really starting to annoy me."

The Doll laughed in amusement and said, "Go ahead. Ask another question. It'll be my pleasure to answer another one."

"Alright then," Maria said and thought quickly. "Where are the other people in the base? I thought that were a lot more people around and it's pretty quiet right now."

"They're down below in the lowest reaches of the base," the impostor. Shirabe replied. "The final part of the ritual to awaken Kadingir is being performed there and they are a necessary component of the ritual."

Lowest reaches of the base? Kirika set her UI to searching for this possible spot and she came up with a blank. As far as she could tell, the holding cells were the lowest part of the base and she mentioned this to Shirabe who spoke about this to the others.

"Of course not. This base has secrets that are unknown to its occupants. How else did you think we could steal your precious weapons and hid them from you? We never even left your base," the Doll said, smiling evilly at them, her eyes fixed on Kirika and the latter glared back at her.

"Wait...what did she said?" Tsubasa said in disbelief over the radio as the three Phantom Thieves looked at each other in confusion. "How can they know about places in the bases that we do not know?"

Shirabe repeated that question to her impostor. and this was met with derisive laughter. "You'll find out if you ever manage to locate the entrance to your base's hidden corners," the Doll said. "But in the meantime, that's all the questions that I'm willing to entertain for now. Maybe Serena would like to have a word with you instead."

The four of them looked around in confusion for a moment before they noticed the Doll Serena's head approaching them rapidly. It had sprouted miniature legs from its neck and the real Serena let out a scream of shock at the sight of her own head crawling towards them like an insect on the ground.

"Nice to meet you all again," the decapitated head said with a bright smile. "As thanks for what you did to me, here's a little something that would make me really happy!" She jumped up into the air and started crackling, even as the Doll Shirabe started to do the same thing.

A bright flash of light filled the air as the two Dolls exploded and all Kirika could see and hear were nothing...