Arknights: It Can't Possibly Be My Fault... Right? — Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The PastYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Seeing the familiar silhouettes of M3 and Kai emerging through the settling dust, Amiya immediately broke away from the vanguard and rushed to meet them. “It’s so good to see that you’re both alright.”

Kai offered a reassuring smile, reaching out to ruffle the young Cautus’s hair. “What did you expect to happen? Everything went off without a hitch. By the way, where’s Ace? We owe the big guy a drink for this one.”

Amiya leaned into the headpat for a brief second before straightening up. “Ace is over by the barricades checking his equipment. He mentioned we have a very tough battle ahead of us.”

Giving her ears one last gentle pat, Kai strolled past the rubble toward the towering Elite Operator.

“Yo! Ace!” Kai called out, raising a hand in greeting.

The veteran adjusted the straps on his shield and turned. “Ah, Kai. How did it go on your end? Did the extraction plan hold up?”

“Thanks to you, it went perfectly,” Kai replied, leaning against a shattered concrete pillar. “How about your side? Faust couldn’t have been easy to pin down.”

“It was manageable. Actually taking him out would have been a nightmare—the kid is as slippery as an eel in the shadows—but just keeping him suppressed and jamming his comms wasn’t too demanding.” Ace reached into his tactical pouch and tossed a small, metallic square box over to Kai.

Catching it effortlessly, Kai inspected the blinking diodes. “Closure might be a total scammer when it comes to LMD, but her tech works wonders. Mephisto was throwing a tantrum trying to get in touch with his sniper.”

“If I’m reading the tactical map right, the final hurdle is coming up next.” Ace stepped closer, throwing a heavy, armored arm around Kai’s shoulder. “Got any more clever tricks up your sleeve for this one?”

Kai shook his head, a helpless sigh escaping his lips. “I really don’t. You can outsmart the kids, but Talulah is a completely different beast.”

“Is she that brilliant of a tactician?”

“No, she’s just terrifyingly violent.”

Ace paused, blinking behind his visor. “Uh, what does that have to do with her being hard to trick?”

“The connection,” Kai said dryly, “is that before you can even get two sentences of your clever monologue out, she’ll just charge straight at you and melt your face off.”

Rumble—

A deafening roar tore through the heavens, vibrating deep within their chests. The Catastrophe looming overhead churned violently, bleeding a sickly, oppressive crimson hue across the ruined skyline of Chernobog. An apocalyptic storm of Originium was preparing to make landfall.

Kai squinted up at the bleeding sky. It had been a little while since he had separated from Mephisto’s group, but the strange, bloated ache in his stomach was steadily growing worse.

“M3, dial it back a notch. I feel like you’re trying to crush my spine,” Kai groaned. He was currently lying flat on a relatively clean slab of debris, while M3 stood over him, aggressively kneading his stomach.

They had just ducked into the shadows of a collapsed overpass to take cover from a sudden shower of falling rocks. M3 had immediately volunteered to use some ‘scientific methods’ to relieve Kai’s indigestion. Unfortunately, aside from the distinct sensation that his internal organs were being flattened into a paste, Kai felt absolutely zero relief.

“That is highly illogical. Why isn’t it working?” M3 tilted her head, her expression blank but her tone laced with genuine confusion. “Kal’tsit clearly does this precise motion whenever her stomach feels uncomfortable. Let me increase the pressure and try again!”

Hearing M3 casually broadcast Kal’tsit’s private habits to the open air caused Kai’s mouth to twitch. “Forget it… I’ll just tough it out.”

Footsteps crunched against the gravel. Amiya and the Doctor approached their makeshift shelter. The Doctor, leaning heavily on a walking stick and favoring one leg, looked down at Kai with a muffled scoff. “You’re awfully fragile, aren’t you?”

“Doctor…” Amiya chided softly, though a faint smile touched her lips. She turned her attention to the young man on the rock. “Mr. Kai, the Catastrophe’s turbulence has temporarily subsided. We need to keep moving while we have this window. Can you still walk?”

Kai waved a dismissive hand and pushed himself off the slab. “I’m fine, let’s move. Hey, Hooded Guy, get over here and let me lean on you.”

Seizing the brief lull in the apocalyptic weather, the Rhodes Island detachment resumed their march through the skeletal remains of the city.

In the center of their formation, tightly bound in reinforced tactical restraints, walked Crownslayer. Out of a basic sense of humanitarian decency, Rhodes Island hadn’t gagged her. Yet, she had remained completely mute for the entire trek, her head bowed, staring at the ash-covered asphalt. She was so quiet that the operators had almost forgotten they were dragging a Reunion squad leader along with them.

“Hey! Do you people even know what lies ahead?” Crownslayer suddenly barked, breaking her long silence.

The operators chatting near the front halted. Amiya turned around and walked back through the formation, crouching down slightly to meet the captive’s gaze.

“Do you have some tactical information you would like to share with us?” Amiya asked, her voice entirely devoid of hostility.

“Hmph. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not looking to defect.” Crownslayer curled her lip in a sneer beneath her mask, her eyes flashing with a veiled threat. “I’m just giving you a polite warning. Our leader, Talulah, is waiting right at the end of this path.”and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

“Yes, we are aware, Miss Ludmila,” Amiya replied, a calm, knowing smile gracing her features. “We know Talulah and her elite guard are waiting for us.”

“You know?” Crownslayer’s sneer faltered, replaced by genuine bewilderment. How could a ragtag pharmaceutical company possibly know that? Even she had only been informed of Talulah’s exact coordinates via a secure encrypted channel right before her ambush failed.

She shook her head, trying to mask her shock. Crownslayer attempted to straighten her posture to regain some dignity, but the ropes dug viciously into her shoulders. With her arms bound tightly behind her back, she was forced to remain slightly hunched.

She let out a frustrated breath. “If you already know, then you must realize that this pathetic little group of yours stands absolutely zero chance against her. So…”

“So you want to be our bargaining chip?” Kai cut in, stepping forward. “You want us to cut your ropes, and in exchange, you’ll beg Talulah to spare our lives? Do you honestly believe you hold that much value to her?”

The blunt assessment choked the words right out of Crownslayer’s throat. She glared at him. “It’s… I am a squad leader, after all. Besides, Talulah has always been a woman of her word. You wouldn’t have to worry about her breaking a deal. But… that wasn’t actually what I wanted to discuss.”

“Then what is it?” Kai raised an eyebrow.

“What you said earlier.” Crownslayer locked her eyes onto Kai’s, her voice dropping to a desperate, intense whisper. “You said you knew about my father. I want to know.”

“Would you even believe a word I said?” Kai asked, genuinely curious. In the original timeline, Crownslayer was notoriously stubborn, blinded by her vendetta.

“Whether I believe it or not is my own damn business. You claim to know the truth of what happened in Chernobog back then. I want to hear it, regardless of whether it’s a lie or not. If you tell me, I will personally take the initiative to plead for your lives when we meet Talulah.” Her tone was hard and unyielding, speaking as though she were the one holding Rhodes Island captive.

Kai glanced over his shoulder at Amiya. The young leader met his gaze and gave a subtle nod. The original strategy had always involved using Crownslayer as use against Talulah; adding an information exchange to the deal changed nothing for them.

“Alright, I’ll tell you,” Kai said, turning back to the captive. “But whether you choose to believe the truth or not, you are going to cooperate fully with Rhodes Island for the rest of this operation. Understood?”

“Just talk.” Crownslayer stared at him, her breathing shallow. She needed to know.

“Your father, Ilya, was one of the primary architects and initiators of the Sarcophagus containment project,” Kai began, his voice losing its usual casual lilt, replaced by a cold, historical detachment. “His death wasn’t a meaningless murder. It was a sacrifice. He stayed behind to prevent an even more catastrophic war from breaking out across Terra.”

He laid out the buried history of the Chernobog research facility, detailing the political nightmare that had surrounded the Sarcophagus. Crownslayer, who had held her head high in defiance just moments ago, slowly let her chin drop to her chest.

“If my memory serves me right, there’s another masked leader running around in Reunion. Goes by the name Skullshatterer, correct, Crowny?” Kai asked.

Crownslayer didn’t even have the energy to snap at the ridiculous nickname. Her mind was spinning violently. If what this strange boy was saying was true, then everything she had fought for—her burning hatred, her endless nights of planning, her entire reason for living—was built on a foundation of lies.

“Ludmila? You still with us?” Kai’s voice pierced through her spiraling thoughts.

“Yes… there is someone by that name,” she whispered, her throat suddenly parched and raspy.

“His father, Sergei, was the one who sold you all out,” Kai stated plainly. “The Ursus military coerced him. They held his newborn children hostage. To save his own flesh and blood, Sergei leaked the classified coordinates of the research institute, and your father’s involvement, directly to the Ursus authorities. You know the rest. The military moved in, and the entire institute—along with every single researcher tied to the Sarcophagus—was slaughtered to silence them.”

The horrific truth hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.

“…” Crownslayer didn’t utter a single word, but the sheer, radiating heat of her fury was enough to make the nearby operators shift uncomfortably.

“Why…”

“What was that?” Kai leaned in slightly.

“Why didn’t Kal’tsit stop it?!” Crownslayer suddenly snapped her head up, her eyes wide and bloodshot behind her mask. “She was there! She should have known exactly what those Ursus bastards were going to do!”

“Because she couldn’t.” Kai met her furious gaze without flinching. “Your father flat-out refused to abandon the facility. He had his own convictions, his own line in the sand. Just like you do.”

He let the silence stretch for a moment, allowing the reality of the situation to sink into her bones.

“Don’t let a misplaced vendetta blind you to the truth, Ludmila. The destination you’re rushing toward on this path of revenge is a dead end.”

Crownslayer violently wrenched her head away, refusing to look at him anymore. “I’ll make my own judgments,” she choked out.

She stared out into the smoke-choked ruins of the battlefield, her throat burning, her world quietly falling apart.You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.